Faith, Hope and Charity
by Lancer47
Summary: Faith gets an unexpected inheritance, then has to solve a murder to keep from being charged herself. She hires lawyer Stone Barrington to help.
1. Chapter 1

**Faith, Hope & Charity**

_A Faith Lehane Mystery_

by LancerFourSeven

AKA Lancer47

_Summary: Faith gets an unexpected inheritance, then has to solve a murder to keep from being charged herself. She hires lawyer Stone Barrington to help._

_Disclaimer: This is the combined turf of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ by Joss Whedon and the _Stone Barrington Series_ by Stuart Woods. This work also includes references and allusions to several John Steinbeck novels. _

_There are no profits here, and no commercial use is allowed._

_Rating: PG18 for language, sex, and violence. This is a first person from Faith's POV. I am not actually writing this, Faith is. She drops by and talks to me and I just take down what she says. (Why yes, I am considering therapy, why do you ask?) But even so I have deleted about 75% of Faith's f-words; she really overuses it, it's as if she'd prefer to be on HBO._

_Spoilers: Lots for Buffy, but if you haven't seen all seven seasons of BtVS several times, then you're probably not reading this. There are no major plot spoilers for any of the Stone Barrington books by Stuart Woods, but there are some spoilers for background stuff. It's not necessary to have read any of the books to enjoy this, but if this persuades you to try one, begin with _'New York Dead' _or any of the first half dozen books in the series. Some of the later books show signs of lazy writing, but they're still pretty good page-turners. _

**Prologue**

I hated _The Red_ fucking_ Pony_. My fifth grade teacher, Miss Wentworth (a dried up old prune, seemed to me at the time – it embarrasses me to admit today that she wasn't even thirty), forced us read _The Red Pony_ by John Steinbeck. And I just gotta tell ya, I really hated that fucking piece of shit. I thought it had to be written by a mopey homesick old drunk—the worst kind of drunk. Do I have to say it again? I really didn't like that fucking book.

So one day I was in the prison library, and I had just finished _The Mammoth Hunters_ by Jean Auel, (wouldn't it be cool to be a Cave-Vampire Slayer? I can just picture myself as Faith of the Mumotoi, dressed in leather and furs, idly swinging my spear thrower in my right hand while checking out the half-naked cave studs) and _Plains of Passage_ was checked out so I idly picked up Steinbeck's _Sweet Thursday, _I don't know why, other than I was bored – any way, I picked it up and started to read it, ready to toss it back on the shelf at the first sign of maudlin crap – but I sat down and read it all the way to the end. Hmm, maybe Steinbeck wasn't so bad after all, so I started _The Grapes of Wrath_, and after a couple of chapters I wondered why they forced fifth graders to read _The Red Pony_, surely Steinbeck's worst book. Unless maybe he's one of those authors you have to be bored out of your mind, or in prison, to enjoy very much, or to get through to the end, you know, like _Lord of the _fucked-up_ Rings_.

So anyways,_ Sweet Thursday's_ prologue has this passage:

"_Well, I like a lot of talk in a book, and I don't like to have nobody tell me what the guy that's talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. And another thing—I kind of like to figure out what the guy's thinking by what he says. I like some description too," he went on. "I like to know what color a thing is, how it smells and maybe how it looks, and maybe how a guy feels about it—but not too much of that."_

"_You sure are a critic," said Whitey No. 2. "Mack, I never give you credit before. Is that all?"_

_No," said Mack. "Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. The guy's writing it, give him a chance to do a little hooptedoodle. Spin up some pretty words maybe, or sing a little song with language. That's nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don't have to read it. I don't want hooptedoodle to get mixed up in the story. So if the guy that's writing it wants hooptedoodle, he ought to put it right at first. Then I can skip it if I want to, or maybe go back to it after I know how the story comes out."_

So that's how I tried to write this. Just remember that I failed seventh grade English, I'm not Steinbeck, I probably don't know as many words as I should, I'm not sure of the meaning of some of the words I do know, and I'm not very good with dialog. So mostly, it's just me putting down what I'm thinking about so right off the bat it's not much like Steinbeck, but I'll try.

If you see any fancy writing it probably isn't me – maybe I quoted something and so you can skip it if you want. I swear a lot and I don't know how to write all literary so this'll probably be shit, but at least it'll be _my_ shit, and maybe Miss Wentworth would only give me a 'C' on it, but I'll take that 'C' because I think I earned at least that much. Better than a sharp stick in the chest anyways.

So this is what happened, and if you don't believe me or if you don't like my words, you can go fuck yourself for all I care.

_Faith Lehane_

**Chapter One**

It turns out Robin wasn't at all particular about where'd he stick his dick; but he really knew what to do with it once he stuffed it in the right place so it took me awhile to notice he wasn't a faithful Faith fucker. I discovered him twice with another woman; so I was a fuckin' idiot. But then again, maybe I'm not the only woman in the world who trusted her man, a mistake I swore I wouldn't make again.

So the first time I caught 'em I didn't realize there was anything hinky going on:

_- Six weeks ago -_

_I smiled as I aimed my 2003 Harley up the drive. Finally, I thought, home again. Three fucking days of tracking a fuckin' slimeball trio of vamps, vamps even lower and more disgusting than most bloodsuckers – and that takes some doin'. But I finally staked the last one down in some fuckin' sewer in fuckin' Kansas City. Who'd ever thought that KC would have storm sewers big enough for a knock-down drag-out fight? Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised after Sunnydale, but still._

_Anyways, I cruised round the house and parked my baby in front of the garage. I noticed Robin was in the gazebo, havin' breakfast with someone. So I strolled over and asked, "Hey Robbie, what's cookin'? And is there any left?"_

_He said, "Hi Faith. This is my friend Sherry Windhome, you know from the Historical Society. She just dropped by a few minutes ago to discuss the Spring Fundraiser which is starting in a month, and I whipped up some breakfast for us."_

_Okay, I thought, I didn't ask for any of that, but – okay. "Hi Sherry," I said, dropping into a chair, grabbing a slice of bacon from Robin's plate. "What's happenin'?"_

_Robbie got up and said, "I'll get you a plate, it'll just take a minute to whip up a little more."_

_I watched him walk up to the house. I wondered a little at his attitude – I had expected a more enthusiastic greeting that that, but maybe he just wasn't used to entertaining much._

_Sherry and I didn't have much to say, I mean what the fuck do I know about fundraising? So we just enjoyed the unseasonably warm morning sun._

- Back to the present -

I bought it, but after she left I had noticed a few things here and there that didn't support the story, things like Robbie using up one of his pressed and starched shirts – unusual weekend behavior. Then there was a receipt from the Whole Foods dated Saturday evening – I wondered what would have forced him to go grocery shopping? There was plenty of food in the fridge and several take-out menus stuck to the door if he didn't feel like cooking. Well, he had bought two rib-eye steaks and a bottle of expensive wine – and it was all gone. And, most damning of all, he changed the sheets on our bed for the first time since I'd known him. All these things were possibly explainable, but taken together? I sighed and ignored the clues, figuring I must be wrong – I was absolutely _positive_ that Robbie would _never_ cheat on me.

But a month and a half later I surprised them again, and this time it was fuckin' unequivocal. (Is that the right word? I think it is, but maybe not – oh well, you know what I fucking mean.) This time they were dressed in bathrobes eating popcorn in the living room, watching Conan fucking O'Brien, very domestic, very upsetting, very 'I really _need_ to kill something now'!

I yelled at him, "Get the fuck outta this fuckin' house you fucking rat bastard!" But he had the balls to remind me that it was his house. Right, like the work I did on it didn't count.

"Go fuck yourself!" I shouted angrily enough to scare the hell out of his piece of tail. It was time to leave before I did something I would regret, so I stalked into the bedroom, packed my saddlebags, told him to ship the rest of my stuff to the Farm, straddled the Fat Boy and took off like a fucking rocket, Robbie ducking a stream of gravel arcing from my rear tire.

A few days later he actually tried to claim that my bike was his. I laughed in his face, "It was a gift you ungrateful fucker! It's my fucking Harley-Davidsion Fat Boy, just like Arnold's, 'cept newer, and you gave it to me in front of witnesses, so no, you don't get it back! Unless you want me to shove it up yer ass?" He didn't, he slinked out instead.

Thing is, my bike had a Willow-special enchanted storage pocket under the seat. There didn't appear to be much room under there, but I could slide a forty inch sword, a gross of stakes, a crossbow, a couple of guns, emergency cash and spare IDs. Plus, no one else but me (and Willow I supposed) could even find it, even if a mechanic took the whole thing apart. Very handy thing to have, so no way was I gonna trade this sucker in to anyone.

The other thing is, enchantment aside, I could've bought it myself, the New Council was pretty good paywise to both Slayers and Watchers now, but he made more than me so he could afford it better.

Wait, why the hell did fuckin' Watchers make more than Slayers? The thought just occurred to me while lazing out in the back garden drinking ice-cold Coors. I mean, Giles should make more than the rest of us, sure, he's the one in charge of the whole fucking enchilada. But Robin? And the other fucktard Watchers? Back in the bad old days the Watchers got all the money and the lone Slayer got nothin' at all, unless you counted a lonely and usually gruesome death as a reward. So when slayers started getting paid, the fact that we got _any_ money at all was amazing, no one bothered to think about how much we should get. I think it's time to sit in on a senior Council board meeting and bring up pay scales.

Okay, that was enough heavy thinking for the day, I chugged another half a can of Coors and stared at the sky.

I'd been back on the Cleveland Farm for the better part of a week. At first I was pretty damned pissed-off, then I was just pissed by English standards, but by the third day I realized it wasn't so bad; after all, I'd been the one who'd walked out. Looking back with now clear vision, I could now see that it just never was gonna work out between Robin and I (or is it Robin and _me_? I never was one for the finer points of fucking grammar.)

"Hey Faith!" yelled Andrew from the kitchen, "did you eat the rest of the brownies?"

"I dunno, were they brown squares of choclatey goodness with perfect texture?"

"Yes! You, you, _frack_ you and the Harley you rode in on! You ate them all!"

"What the fuck is frack?"

"Ooooh! I can't talk to you, you, philistine you!" He slammed the door.

I slammed back another Coors, wondered what a philistine was, watched the squirrels chase each other through the trees for awhile and let out a belch loud enough to startle the furry critters as far as three trees away. I thought about how much fun it must be to be to live a squirrel's life, at least in the spring and summer, fall and winter not so much I guessed. I suppose time was passing; I wasn't too aware of it though.

"Hey Faith!" Dawn shouted out the back door, "you got mail!"

"So forward it to my account," I shouted back, using my right hand to search for my fancy phone so I could hold up and show it to Dawn, but I couldn't find it; I was sure it was around here somewhere.

"No, no," she answered walking towards me, "it's actual mail, sheets of real paper in an envelope with stamps and everything."

"If it's from fuckin' Robin, I don't want it," I said while popping the top on another Coors.

"How the hell can you drink that trout piss?" Dawn asked me. My answer was to chug most of the can – she shook her head in disgust and continued, "Not Robin, it's from some law firm in New York."

"Really? What do they want with me? Wait, fuckin' Robins from New York, I bet it has somethin' to do with 'im."

"Maybe, maybe not. Here, open and see." She handed me a large buff envelope. The return address read: 'Woodman and Weld, Attorneys at Law, William Eggers, Esq., with an NYC address. Curious, I opened it.

I pulled out several pages of expensive feeling paper, and started reading, I couldn't make any sense of it so I read it twice more. "Fuck!" I yelped as the meaning filtered through my beer-soaked brain.

"What! What? What is it?" Dawn asked urgently.

"I've inherited my Aunt Helen's estate! A piece of it anyway."

"Seriously? How much is it worth?"

"I don't really know, I was eleven or twelve the last time I visited her, but it was a big fuckin' house on a big fuckin' bay, somewhere on Long Island, a few miles from some place called Sag Harbor I think, could be worth a lot I guess."

"Sag Harbor! That's a pretty upscale neighborhood."

"It don't mean shit to me – I remember the name only because it seemed like there were a lot of old people with sagging tits wandering around the town. 'Course, eleven year olds don't have much sympathy for the senior set."

"I can't wait to find out what your new neighbors think of you. So anyway, what happens next?"

I read the page again and glanced at the others. "I go to New York, there's to be a reading of the will and probate and stuff, and I'm supposed to be there."

"Wow, who would've thought: Faith Lehane, heiress," Dawn rambled.

"Let's not count the chickens before they've hatched," I said. "After all, most of the luck that's come my way, especially from my family, has been of the bad variety, worse than bad, awful, just fuckin' awful. So I ain't planning on holding my breath for any huge pile of money. Really Dawn, the only thing that I'd expect to inherit from Aunt Helen would be some nicknacks and and things, a small bequest, maybe; at the most a college fund or something; that's the kind of woman she was."

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with a college fund."

"I didn't say there was, but I'm not gonna daydream about great wealth, what would I do with a boatload of money? I mean besides buy a custom chopper and another sword. Oh fuck it, I'll find out what it's gonna be in a couple of days."

* * *

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Faith, Hope & Charity**

_A Faith Lehane Mystery_

by LancerFourSeven

AKA Lancer47

**Chapter Two**

_See Chapter One for Disclaimer._

* * *

The next morning, much more sober, I mounted my faithful Fat Boy and hit I-80, aimed eastwards, content to collect bugs in my teeth as the miles went by under my boots. The smooth ride, the road noise, the Harley's almost-patented burbling, the vibration between my legs, all was soothing; I was one with the world: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Riding was me.

Six hours later, somewhere in the middle of New Jersey, I started to smell a whiff of fucking vampires. Now that may sound strange, but every Slayer felt 'em a little differently. Some of the girls felt it as a sixth sense, and couldn't really describe it, not even to the rest of us Slayers; others felt it as an extra dose of PMS – no envy there – but to me they just smelled like something dead and rotten. So I caught the next exit, rocked my foot till I hit neutral and coasted down the ramp, looking around carefully. By now I was used to the smell of New Jersey – a sort of chemical smell on top of rotting garbage that uglified the fucking highway for the last hundred miles. So the vampire smell had to be shit-strong to be noticeable – and it was. I wondered if I should call for backup. Nah, fuck it, I'll just jump in the middle and slay 'em all.

I braked to a stop. There wasn't any traffic around, except up the steep embankment on the Interstate. But down here there was just a winding two lane road and a narrow concrete underpass. All I could see was cruddy looking bushes, some stunted trees, a repulsive little creek overflowing with some sort of fucked-up bubbly shit, and a whole bunch of huge oil and chemical storage tanks dotting the landscape. Out towards the horizon south of me I could see a cone-shaped furnace-looking thing that was darkening the sky with a huge plume of dark-brown smoke. I supposed they were burning trash – I thought that was illegal now, but maybe the Jersey mob hadn't heard from the EPA yet. So where were my fucking vampires? I couldn't see anyplace where they might wanna hang out, and it was morning and even with that smoke to the south it was still bright and sunny, so they had to be under something.

I turned left and cruised for a couple of miles, following my nose. Finally, I came across an abandoned factory. Fuckin' 'A'! Now _that's_ a vampire hangout! I drove through the broken gates, revving my bike to announce my arrival to the undead so I wouldn't have to waste time searching for them, and skidded to a flashy stop in front of the most habitable looking building.

I armed myself with as many stakes as I could comfortably fit in my pockets and belt, then removed my sword from Willow's magical hiding spot.

The smell of death was strong now. I suspected that the vamps here probably had some recently dead bodies lying around. I didn't like that – nothing like stepping on a old corpse in the middle of sword fight to throw me off balance. It had only happened to me once, but once was more than enough; I could still remember the stench of rotted flesh, the cloud of bugs, the fuckin' maggots crawling around my foot, and worst of all, slipping in some sort of thick liquid that had seeped out of the body. My Italian motorcycle boots were never the same after that – I tried many different ways to clean them but eventually had to throw them out. Wouldn't you know it, I was wearing the replacement boots that Dawn had sent me just last month.

"Here vampy vamps!" I called out in sing-song voice as I strolled towards the huge metal doors, "Come out come out wherever you are!" I whipped my sword back and forth to work the kinks out of my muscles and get my blood circulating properly.

I stopped just in front of the humongous sliding doors. I could hear whispering and shuffling from the other side – shit, there might be as many as a dozen fuckin' bloodsuckers behind that door. That was a lot of vampires – oh well, one dozen vampires vs. one vampire slayer, that sounded about right to me. I jumped straight up to a crude opening rusted out of the metal wall about twenty feet up. There was a handy steel beam that looked like a super-highway to my slayer-balanced legs, a mouse that had been happily scurrying along the beam stopped, frozen in terror, watching me walk softly towards him. I looked down, studying the layout below, I could see eight vampires near the door, readying themselves for me, looked like; a couple of them were big fuckers, too. Really big. Guess that's why it felt like twelve, but they were looking puzzled, guess they couldn't sense me outside the door anymore.

I could smell the stink of my own sweat. I'd faced these odds before and I'd always won – I would this time too, probably. _Stop thinking about it_, I told myself. _Just fucking do it!_ So I jumped down behind the vampires, swung my sword in a flat arc and took the heads of three in one cut before my feet hit the concrete.

The rest weren't quite so fuckin' easy. I slashed and hacked my way through them – it started to be a close thing so I ramped up my speed. I whipped my sword this way and that, switched the sword to one-hand and got a stake in the other. The fuckin' vamps kept dodging my blade; so I was only down to four now, but these four were the smartest and toughest of the group. As I swung my head, I could feel tendrils of hair whipping around, flinging off beads of sweat. I flung a stake and poof, another down, three to go, three that now look spooked and sweating – a good trick cuz vamps don't sweat. I collected a fist to the side of my face and a boot to my stomach which made me fall ass over teakettle to the rough floor. Damn, this wouldn't do my leather jacket any good. I flipped angrily to my feet and pressed my attack home: stake, whoosh! Thrust, poof! Swing, dust! Done!

It was enough of a workout that by the time I dusted the last one I was covered in sweat and vampire crud, and possibly some mouse shit. But I survived, again. Funny, I never used to worry about makin' it or not, I figured I would never know if I didn't live and maybe I didn't used ta care much. But wakin' up after most of a year in a coma, followed by some prison time, does change ones outlook on life, even if it took a few years to make any sense of the experience.

I pushed the doors open and stepped out into the sunlight, breathing deep the crappy air and turning my face to the sun. It felt good. After soaking up rays for minute or so I put my sword away and swung my leg over my bike and just rested for a minute. Finally, I started her up, revving the engine and listening to the Harley rumble to make sure everything was working right, and headed down the highway. I cruised to the next big town and checked into a Marriott, which I put on my ISWC American Express card. It was nice to be able to afford better places than the roach-motels I used to inhabit. Still, the deskpersons looked at me funny and one sort sniffed as if he smelled something nasty but was too well-bred to mention it. I sighed, you couldn't describe my aroma as dainty, but a long hot shower cured that problem. Followed by a big steak dinner and a good nights sleep and I was good to go.

As I drove on early the next morning, I contemplated my Aunt Helen. She was always nice to me, but not so nice to my mother. Considering they were sisters, you'd think there'd be some family feeling or something, but Helen figured her sister's drug addiction was a moral failing, and refused to cut her any slack. I could see her point, but Aunt Helen might have tried harder to get mom into a rehab program, again. I let that thought circle around for a minute and sighed to myself, who the fuck was I trying to kid? Once mom went an got the urge, nuthin', and I mean _nuthin'_, would stop her from getting a fuckin' fix, and Aunt Helen had surely figured that out sooner rather than later.

I'd overheard mom one night talking to her 'boyfriend', hah, dealer/pimp more like; it seems mom's philosophy was _'Old enough to bleed, old enough to breed'_, and though she didn't want me pregnant she intended to make a great deal of money from my virgin body. I could've told she was already too late, but that conversation wouldn't have gone well, not because of any moral standpoint, just the missed opportunity to score on the young V. Nice woman; I left the next fucking day, I wasn't about to let my own mother monetize my pussy. If she hadn't ODed a few years back maybe I would've gone back and... Okay, I wouldn't have actually killed her, she was my mother after all, but I sure as hell didn't have many happy memories of her. A couple or three, maybe four. But the pimp mother fucker was a different story, and I'll never apologize for what I did to him, but let's not tell anybody, okay?

Come to think of it, I took to the streets just a few months after I last saw Aunt Helen. Hmmm, lookin' back with 20/5 hindsight, I wondered why I hadn't gone to live with Helen. _Now_ I know she would have taken me in, welcomed me with open arms even, but at the time, it just didn't occur to me – I guess because Aunt Helen's life seemed too high class for the likes of me or some shit like that. Then my first Watcher found me and things started lookin' up, for a couple of years anyway.

So back in the day Aunt Helen had married well and had a nice house and became part of New York's high society. I still couldn't believe she was giving me any part of it, I mean, I had a couple of cousins who had more right to it than me, not to mention other in-laws on uncle Scott's side of the family. Wondering about it wasn't doing me any good, so I went back to the Zen Zone.

I made it through the tunnel into Manhattan during the morning rush hour and headed towards the Woodman and Weld offices for the reading of the will. If that letter had got to me even a day later, I would've had to fly, but as it was I had just enough time to get there.

After gulping down a couple of New York style breakfast burritos from a low-rent sidewalk steam cart, I walked into Woodman and Weld's fancy office building and studied the directory. They had four floors of the the building – the elevator took me up to their lowest floor and I stood in front of a fancy receptionist. She didn't want to look at me, but I'm kinda hard to ignore. I'm guessing she didn't get too many biker chicks in black leather standing in front of her desk, judging by the men and women I could see power walking through the halls in their three thousand dollar suits trying to look busy at important tasks, or maybe they really were busy at important tasks. She frostily asked me, "May I help you?" She couldn't pull off the look-down-her-nose thing while seated and looking up at me – but she surely did try.

"Yeah, I'm here to see Bill Eggers." I purposely exaggerated my Boston street accent just to aggravate her.

She thawed a couple of degrees at Eggers name. "Whom shall I say is calling?"

"Faith Lehane."

"Just a moment please," she warbled.

It was only moments later when an assistant rushed out to escort me back to Egger's office. I was beginning to wonder just how much I was inheriting cuz I gotta say, no fancy-pants lawyer had ever bent over backwards for me before. We went up a floor, down a nicely appointed hallway to a large corner office, and I was shown in.

"Hello Ms. Lehane," a fiftyish man said, getting up from his desk and offering his hand. "Please, have a seat." If he was annoyed by my leathers, my wild hair, the faint whiff of road and exhaust fumes, he didn't show it.

"I'm sorry we didn't get that letter to you sooner, but we had a devil of a time locating you," he said.

"Hey, don't sweat it. I got it in time to get a lot of contemplating done on my Harley on the way here." I didn't mention my vampire slaying side trip.

He made me feel welcome, without being overly effusive (there's another word I picked up listening to Giles – I hope I'm using it the right fucking way), and we exchanged meaningless phrases for a minute. Then he glanced at his watch and got up and said, "It's time to join the others."

I walked with him to a luxurious conference room, I mean, I thought his office was high rent, but I could see they _really_ spent some money here. The huge wood conference table alone probably cost more than my Harley; more than two Harleys, maybe. Add the wood panels, the fancy wood floor, the handmade rug, the intricate ceiling, and you could feed a whole third-world family for a fuckin' lifetime. One whole wall was mostly glass and looked out over the center of the city, but I wasn't there to admire the view or critique the decor. Bill showed me to the seat to the right of the head of the table. The sour expressions on the faces of the three people already seated was enough to tell me I was about as welcome as a cockroach in a Waldorf salad, whatever the fuck a Waldorf salad was.

An assistant placed a file in front of Eggars. He squared it up just so and carefully opened it. He cleared his throat and lawyerly intoned, "Today we are here to read the last will and testament of Mrs. Clarance Scott Wilkerson née Helen Alice Lehane, known as Helen Wilkerson to most of you. Present is Ms. Faith Lehane, Mr. Roger Wilkerson, Ms. Florence Wilkerson, and Mrs. William L. Smiley, formerly Judy Ann Wilkerson."

Well, I thought, uncle Scott's family was well represented. I had the feeling they wouldn't be happy about me gettin' anything at all. Prolly'd feel I was an interloper. Florence Wilkerson seemed especially unhappy. She was one of those died-in-the-wool New Englanders with a cast-iron rod shoved far up her ass, doomed to a perpetual sore neck from constantly looking down her nose at everyone around her. I knew her type well, Boston was infested with people like her. She had managed not to acknowledge my existence yet, even though she was sitting right across the table from me, although she did manage to sniff disapprovingly like someone just let loose with a particularly rank fart; I actually considered fulfilling her expectation for a moment or two since my breakfast burritos were rumbling around in my stomach, but I held it in. I mused about the seating order. She likely considered it an affront that she wasn't sitting to the right of Eggers. The only other thing I could think was that she thought I must be getting more than her. I wondered what else I could have done to deserve her hatred. Maybe my last name being the same as my aunt's maiden name would signal to anyone on the ball that my mother was never married. A little illegitimacy in the family would probably not sit well with these wealthy Easterners.

"First," Eggers continued, "there were several bequests that Mrs. Wilkerson handled through this firm before her untimely death. She set up a trust fund to endow retirement and separation bonuses to her loyal servants, and to hold certain stocks and other business interests, but I mention them now because they were triggered by her death, even though it's not actually part of the probate process.

"Next," he said, looking down to read from the Will, " 'I, Helen Wilkerson, being of sound mind and body do declare that this is my last will and testament and my wishes regarding the arrangement of my affairs. To my son Roger, I leave my house on Cape Cod and all appurtenances thereof and my First Bank of Boston account.' "

Eggers looked up and added, "The amount in that account comes to one hundred ninety-four thousand dollars and seventy-seven cents as of the close of business yesterday. And of course, both Roger and Judy have trust funds that pay about seventy-five thousand dollars per annum to each." Roger looked angry, beyond angry really, I guess he was expecting a lot more than that. But what the hell, he got a house on Cape Cod, that couldn't be chump change, could it? And he wouldn't miss a meal, would he? I mean I know a lotta people that live on a lot less than seventy-five grand a year and have to pay rent besides. Including me – especially me – at least up until Giles and Buffy rebuilt the Council and started giving me a paycheck.

Eggers continued, " 'To my daughter Judy, I leave the amount of two million dollars, which she can use to leave her worthless husband should she desire.' " Eggers looked up and said to Judy, "The money is structured in such a way that your husband cannot get control of it, as long as you refrain from just giving it to him." Judy looked torn, like she wanted to leave the presumed bastard but loved him just the same. I could sympathize with her.

He continued, " 'To my beloved sister-in-law, Florence Wilkerson, I leave my collection of Hummel figurines because Florence praised them so fulsomely, and a stick which she can place where it will do her the most good.' " Florence's face sort twitched a couple of times, leading me to think that maybe 'fulsome' didn't mean what I was thinking it meant, although the meaning of the stick was unmistakable. The assistant quietly handed Eggers a cardboard tube. He opened it and solemnly pulled out a stick about two feet long and a half-inch round, and carefully placed it on the table in front of Florence. It looked like a small branch torn off an oak tree.

The expressions on everybody's faces were fucking priceless! I wished I had a camera. I had never seen an insult done in such a high-class manner, but there was no mistaking this was a truly deep insult. It was pretty clear there was no love lost between Helen and Florence. There was no actual smoke coming from Florence's ears, but it wasn't for lack of trying on her part. I wondered if I would ever hear the whole story.

Eggers went on, " 'And finally, to my long lost niece, Faith Erin Lehane, who has, against all odds, proven her worth and found her way in the world through perseverance, great personal effort, and tremendous self-sacrifice, I leave my house on Long Island, all appurtenances thereof, and my New York City apartment, and the remainder of my worldly goods, including my bank and stock accounts at Chase Bank and any other accounts or safe deposit boxes that are not otherwise noted in this document. I further charge Faith to continue my search for Charity Kellie Lehane, and, when found, discharge one last obligation and give her control of a trust account set up for Charity and whatever other consideration that Faith feels her situation might require.' "

Whoa! Now _there's_ a name I hadn't heard in a long while – I must have been about six years old the last time I saw Charity, and after that – nothing. Even though that memory was dim, it still had the power to haunt me twenty years later.

Eggers put the paper down and said to me, "The apartment is being remodeled right now so it is uninhabitable. But you will be able to move into the house immediately, if you want. However, you won't be able to sell it or access more than petty cash until probate is complete. And that depends on whether or not there are any legal challenges to the will."

Well yeah, I could see there'd be 'legal challenges'. My cousin Roger for one was awful put out, and Florence was one pissed-off lady. Only cousin Judy seemed content, if more than a little confused.

Eggers fussily aligned the papers and slipped them into the file, which he handed to his assistant and said, "And that concludes today's business, thank you for coming." He turned to me and said quietly, "Please wait Ms. Lehane, we have much to discuss after the others have left."

The others, of course, didn't look like they intended on leaving anytime soon. They were glaring daggers at Eggers and me both, all of them angrily and loudly talking a mile a minute, but the assistant graciously assisted them out the door and down the hall. It was clear that they weren't at all happy. I picked up the stick which had been left behind and started to call out to Florence, but Eggars shook his head at me, so I regretfully put it down.

He and I made our way back to his fancy corner office, and I started to learn about my Aunt's family.

* * *

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

**Faith, Hope & Charity**

_A Faith Lehane Mystery_

by LancerFourSeven

AKA Lancer47

**Chapter Three**

_A/N: In real life, it could take years to settle a sizable estate when the beneficiaries don't like each other. I cut short the legal procedures just to keep the plot moving along. _

"Well Ms. Lehane, I'm sure you're wondering about the reactions of your relatives to your aunt's will. There were hard feeling between your aunt and her sister-in-law."

"Well, yeah, I'd kinda figured that out."

"It was an obvious statement, I do apologize. The fact of the matter is that I am not certain what caused the animosity. Your aunt accepted me as her personal attorney five years ago, upon the retirement of one of the senior partners here at Woodman & Weld, and the hostility predated that event. No one has ever informed me of the root cause, and I decline to speculate, therefore I am unable to satisfy any curiosity you may have on the subject."

I wondered if all lawyers talk in that fucked-up stilted fashion. Actually, my court appointed defense lawyer hadn't, but she was pretty wild, and that relationship was very short, so what do I know? "Okay. Is Florence going to be broke now, or is she fixed all right?"

"You needn't worry about her, she has plenty tucked away. She's just angry because, as she sees it, some of the family fortune, including the Sag Harbor House, is being passed outside of her control. That, and she may not consider you to be truly family, for various reasons. But I wouldn't worry about her."

"Yeah, I think I should reserve my worry for my cuz, Roger. He seemed ready to explode."

"You are correct. Mr. Roger Wilkerson has several bad habits which contributed to his mother cutting him out as much as she could. Men, gambling, and possibly drugs, although the jury is still out on the last."

"Men? You mean grandkids are unlikely?"

"Yes. Helen wasn't particularly prejudiced against homosexuals, as long as they weren't in her family. Actually, even that sentiment is unfair, she loved both her children unreservedly, and that didn't change even when they proved to be, well, not what she expected or hoped. But be that as it may, the lack of grandchildren _was_ a big problem to her – Roger often stated he would not father children under any circumstances, and if Judy ever had children they would be tainted by genes from Judy's current husband, who your aunt considered less than worthwhile. Personally, I think Roger is lucky to have gotten a house out of the deal, and enough money to smooth over a lot of problems. But I think you should be careful, he may have been counting on receiving much more. Worse, if I'm reading between the lines correctly, he may have debts to people that are, shall we say, less than savory."

"Don't worry 'bout me, I teach unarmed combat to cops and I've got a bunch of good friends if needed."

"Oh, I see," he said faintly, then continued, "Actually, more than anything else, I think Roger's problem is that he is utterly unreliable. Helen believed that he would gamble away any inheritance in record-breaking time, and I suspect she was right. And Judy, well, as you heard, Helen didn't think much of Judy's husband. He is, to be blunt, after the family money and doesn't appear to have any redeeming values – god knows what Judy ever saw in him. Helen had me go to great length's to make certain he would be cut out completely. If Judy does jettison the man, Helen would like you to share some of your inheritance with her, but she left it entirely up to you, nothing written, just a verbal request from her, through me, with no conditions attached."

"Seriously, why did Aunt Helen place so much trust in me? I was eleven when I last saw her, and there were precious few letters between us since then."

"She had sources with which I am unfamiliar. Apparently, she followed your progress in the world closer than you knew," he said, as he handed me a large folder. "As it happened, I had to modify her will every year or so – sometimes more often. Each time your circumstances changed I had to include you in or out. You must lead an interesting life to require so many changes."

Did my aunt know about Slayers and the fucking Council? I needed to talk to Giles about that.

Eggers continued, "And call me Bill, please. Now one of the conditions requires you to look for Charity Kellie Lehane – do you know what that's about? Because your aunt never satisfied my curiosity."

"Yeah, see, I had two younger sisters, Hope and Charity."

"Faith, Hope and Charity," he said quietly, "I suppose your mother's name must have been Sophia."

"Howd'ja know that?" I asked.

"Because Faith, Hope and Charity were early Christian martyred saints, and their mother was Sophia."

"Oh, I didn't know that – I never had much use for fuckin' religion. And I guarantee ya mom never took me to church."

"Yes, so, Hope and Charity Lehane?"

I said, "Hope died during the night a few months after she was born – I was about two, I think. I was told later it was Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but who knows if that was true? Charity came along about four years later and after a visit from Child Protective Services, she was taken away from my mother. I assume she went into the system and was adopted by someone."

"And why didn't CPS remove you from your mother's care?" Eggers asked.

"Beats me, unless maybe they didn't know I existed."

"Mm. Well, I wish you luck, and you can call on the services of this firm to help you."

"And what's that gonna cost?" I snarked.

"We aren't inexpensive, but we're worth every dollar and you can afford us now," he said with a sincere smile. "Now here's the paperwork on the house and the keys so that you can take possession. As I said, it will be some time before you can access more than the petty cash fund – a few hundred thousand dollars – and you won't be able to sell any property for now, but you could rent it out if you wish, and apply the rental income towards property taxes and upkeep, which is steeper than you might think. Any income beyond that would have to go into an escrow account, though, pending the outcome of any lawsuits."

"That sounds five by five."

"The house is still staffed: there's a cook and a handyman who live on the premises and are paid from a separate account so you don't have to worry about them until the estate is fully settled. They've been given time off since Helen's death, but they're supposed to be back tomorrow. There's also a cleaning service and a security service, also paid from other accounts."

"Shit, just how big is this place?"

"Here's a map, you can go look it over."

"It's been thirteen years since I was there, but I bet I can find it."

"I'm sure you can. Now, as to the value of your holdings – "

"I'm not sure I want to hear this."

"I know this may seem overwhelming, but you have fiscal responsibilities now, so you need to pay attention. The apartment on Fifth Avenue you own outright, also, through your stock account, you own eight per cent of Wilkerson Interests, Inc., which is a real estate investment syndicate that owns the whole building, and a few others besides. Your 8% yields a generous income, and it would allow you to become involved in the running of the business, if you wish."

"Not fuckin' likely. So, uh, how much am I worth? Total?"

"Somewhere around eighteen million dollars, with the real estate market as down as it is. If you hang on and don't sell, it could be four or five times that amount in a few years."

"What the fuck am I gonna do with that much money!" I exclaimed, horrified.

Eggers smiled as he said, "Mostly, you let your experts handle it. But, you must learn to read financial reports to understand what your finance people are doing, and more importantly, to be able to recognize if you're being scammed."

I held my head in my hands and thought about screaming. I didn't fucking want this, no way, nohow. This just isn't me. I'm Faith the Vampire Slayer, not Faith the fucking Heiress! It was fun when I thought I was getting a nice house and a little money in the bank, but this – stocks and bonds and real estate and accountants and tax lawyers and fuck – it would never end. If I didn't watch out I would be consumed by this shit; eaten alive more thoroughly than any demon could've. Now I _really_ need to kill something.

"I'm gonna go to the house," I said, trying not to shake as I stood up, "and think."

Bill got up from his desk. "I'll walk you to the elevators."

* * *

I punched the address into my GPS navigator and pointed the front tire towards Long Island. My Harley was ideal for sliding through city traffic to the expressway, where traffic was still heavy, but it was still less than two hours or so before I got to the village out on Long Island that I remembered. A local cop gave me the evil eye as I passed him, but he didn't stop me. My stomach rumbled so when I spotted a diner I parked and went in for a late lunch. The prices were startling – thirteen fifty for a hamburger? At least it came with fries and it turned out to be a damn good burger. It'd better be for thirteen bucks, right? Between my generous Council pay and my amazing inheritance, I guess I could afford it now.

I'd finished my burger and salad and was in the middle of scarfing down a blueberry pie a la mode when I spotted cousin Roger stalking in the door. Maybe he'd be nice to me now that I controlled the family finances.

He stopped in the middle of the restaurant, and screamed at me, "HOW DID YOU CHEAT ME OUT OF MY MOTHER'S ESTATE YOU FUCKING GOLD-DIGGING BITCH!"

I sighed, guess not. "Join me for lunch?" I asked brightly, since I couldn't very well slay in the middle of the fucking restaurant. "It's on me." I could afford to be generous to him.

He stomped his size twelves closer to my table, anger radiating from every part of his body. "FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING BITCH YOU, YOU, FUCK, YOU! I WOULDN'T TAKE FOOD FROM YOU EVEN IF I WERE STARVING! I WANT MY FUCKING INHERITANCE!"

"And this is your clever plan to win me over? Aunt Helen left you a nice trust fund and a nice house on Cape Cod, why the fuck don't you go there?"

"I HATE the fucking boonies! She knew I hated the fucking place! Why the hell should I go to Massa-fucking-chusetts?"

"Because there's nothing for you here?"

Then he surprised me by snatching a knife right out of the hand of a guy eating a seventeen dollar meatloaf, and threw it at me. I grabbed it out of the air, inches from my left eye. He glared, breathing heavily, and said slowly, "I'm gonna get what's comin' to me, and there ain't a _fucking_ thing you can do about it." Then he turned and left, slamming into a food-laden waiter on the way out. Plates crashed, food splattered, the other patrons stared at me. I could see who they sided with, and it wasn't the tough chick in black leathers. Oh well, story of my life. A waiter quietly replaced the knife with a clean one and took the one that had been thrown at me while two others cleaned the mess. At least he gave me an apologetic smile, even if no one else did.

I finished my pie and paid my check (a hamburger, fries, salad, pie, milk shake and coffee: thirty-four dollars! Okay, it was a Chef's Salad, but still. On top of that, I to leave six bucks for a tip. I couldn't get over paying forty dollars for lunch – apparently this was a very tony area of Long Island and I was a long ways from the streets of Boston) and strolled out to my ride. I stroked the Harley gently while I fired up the navigator and double checked my route to the house. It was all vaguely familiar, so I didn't have a problem finding the old place.

I drove through the open gates – there was a small gatehouse but no guard that I could see – and stopped where the driveway came around a corner high on the ridge overlooking the house and grounds. I stopped to study the scene around me. The sky was a deep blue with some large fluffy white clouds drifting across. There was a delightful breeze coming from the ocean and I could hear seagulls squawking down near the shore where the waves were gently rolling in. The land around the house was a brilliant green, apparently spring had been good to this area and the grass and bushes and trees were blooming and healthy. I could see a couple of deer munching on the scenery in the distance, and more kinds of birds than I knew flitting around. Damn, this place felt good. Then I looked towards the house. Even though it looked smaller than I had remembered – I'm sure everything seemed bigger at eleven – it was still a very large house, two stories plus generous attic space and a widow's walk on the roof. It was a good distance back from the edge of a bluff, but there was a boardwalk from the house to the edge and I remembered there was a set of wooden stairs going down to a sizable boathouse on the beach. I wondered if there were still any boats in the boathouse. There was a detached garage in a style similar to the house not far from the back door, probably had cars in it plus there was a pair of apartments above for the staff. I got out my paperwork and found a survey plan which I studied intently. My house was right in the middle of a twenty acre plot.

So much for fuckin' hooptedoodle. I put my bike in gear and drove on down to the house. I could see the back bumper of a car parked around the house in front of the garage, and in front of the house was a snappy Mercedes two-seater convertible. It looked expensive, so I had the idea that maybe my dear cousin got here ahead of me.

I stopped in front of the wide stone steps to the front door of – my – house. I was delighted to have a place I could call home, if I wanted, and amazed that it was such an incredible house. Of course, that good feeling would last right up to when I'd have to pay the property tax (or replace the roof – I could see from here that some of the slate shingles were loose), although I suppose the rest of my inheritance would cover it. Hmm, rent it to the Council, maybe? Could be a good 'Slayers, East' headquarters. I'd have to do something with the place, it was way too big for one Slayer, though I guess Aunt Helen had found it comfortable.

Looking at the broad stone steps gave me an idea, and there wasn't anyone who could tell me I couldn't do it. I rocked my foot to select first gear, and gently released the clutch and that big bike, all seven hundred pounds worth plus me, bumped slowly and steadily up the steps to the front porch where there was plenty of room to turn around and park. I shut her off, kicked the stand down, and swung my leg over with a silly grin plastered on my face. I took my helmet off and shook out my hair.

The front door was locked, but whoever was here could've used the back door I supposed. I unlocked it and walked through, looking around, feeling good. The place was old, but well cared for. Of course it was full of bric-a-brac and fussy old furniture, but the rooms were large and had big windows that looked out over the ocean. Fuckin' amazin', maybe my luck really was changing for the better. This must be the living room, unless Helen called it the 'parlor'. To the right was an opening that led to a massive library. I wandered in, not to look at books – frankly I didn't read much since getting out of prison – but to see if this would do for a scooby meeting room. As I studied the dark woodwork, I thought that Xander and Giles would both love this room, each for different reasons. I looked down at the large table in the middle and idly picked up a book that was lying there. I glanced at the cover, did a double take and read the title again: _A Delineative Compendium of Canonical Demonology_, by Lewellyn G. Staunton, PhD, OBE. What the fuck!

But then something that had been faintly tickling my senses burst through to my head: it was the smell of gunpowder, overlaid with the coppery scent of blood. Oh shit, so much for good luck.

I followed my nose back through the living room, the central hall, and into the kitchen at the rear of the house. Aunt Helen must have modernized it recently, it had every convenience known to cooks and was extraordinarily beautiful besides. I stepped around the island and there was cousin Roger, lying face-up on the floor in front of the huge Viking range in an expanding pool of blood with what looked to me like a couple of 9mm holes in his chest. "Fuck!" I said as I kneeled down to see if he was alive; he wasn't. I leaned back on my heels. I heard steps behind me so I stood up fast, ready to defend myself if needed.

"FREEZE!" shouted a young guy in a cop uniform shakily pointing a gun at me, "HANDS UP!"

Well fuck me.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

**Faith, Hope & Charity**

_A Faith Lehane Mystery_

by

STFarnham

AKA Lancer47

AKA LancerFourSeven

* * *

**Chapter Four**

"Hey officer," I said, looking him directly in the eyes with as much sincerity as I could muster, "I just walked in and found him like this. I mean, do ya see a gun anywhere?"

"KEEP YOUR HANDS UP!" he shouted.

Fuck, this guy was wound tighter than a seven day clock with a ten-day wind. I guessed he hadn't ever walked in on a murder scene before. I tried again, "Officer, I own this house, I just got here, I didn't have time to do anything like this. There's a bunch of witnesses at the diner in town that'll swear to when I left there, including a cop in town." I knew the timing wouldn't actually prove that I couldn't have done this, but I was trying to defuse the guy before he fucking shot me, either accidentally or on purpose.

"Please," I continued, "why don't you call for some detectives, and maybe crime scene investigators? Call your supervisor."

"You don't tell me what to do missy!" He was still nervous, maybe even more so. What was this guy's problem? Fuckin' asshole.

"Can I put my hands down? My arms are tiring," I said quietly while making my eyes open a little more than is natural to try to give him the ol' big brown eyes brimming with tears thing. It worked when I was eight, why not try it now?

"NO! Keep 'em up!" He shook his head and droplets of sweat dripped down his forehead and arced off his nose.

"Okay, okay, it's just that I'm getting tired. And it's scary with you pointing that big gun at me for no reason at all. This is my property, after all." I'm such a kidder.

"Nice try girl, but I know Roger Wilkerson there, and he's the owner, or was before you shot him."

"You're wrong officer, I inherited this property from my Aunt Helen, Roger didn't get this house – he got the one on Cape Cod." The cop looked puzzled. But then he came to a decision; I could see it in his eyes – a hardening of his gaze. I could see his muscles contracting along his arm. He was going to shoot me. Before he could pull the trigger I reacted with Slayer speed: I turned sideways and stepped to him while reaching out with my left hand to grab his wrist, just behind the gun. I pressed fairly hard with my thumb on the nerve cluster in his wrist. I twisted around and slipped my right hand under my left and liberated his gun, which I plopped down on the maple counter of the kitchen island. Then I swung him around and pushed his face down to the counter. He tried hard to fight me every step of the way, but he was no challenge to my slayer strength. I had him face down on the counter and I was able to keep him under control with my left hand wrapped around his wrists behind his back. He was far more frightened now than he was before, he continued to struggle, but there was nothing he could do.

I said, "Don't worry officer, I ain't gonna hurt'cha, I'm just disarming you to prevent you from hurting me." I flicked the safety lever and released the the catch for the clip of his worn Beretta 9mm. I put the gun down again and found the deputy's extra clips on his belt pouch. Then I frog-marched him to the big round oak table, in a roomy bay window overlooking a generous garden with the ocean visible over the bluffs beyond. I put him in a chair and shoved it up to the table. Now I could back up. "If you move officer, I will hurt you, just don't move and you'll be fine." He was sweating and pale.

I found some baggies, and some paper towels, and carefully unloaded each clip, making certain I wasn't adding my fingerprints to anything and put them in the baggie. I unloaded the bullet that was still in the chamber of the gun, then snapped it shut and put it back in his holster, along with his empty clips. "Okay," I said, "now call your damn backup. Do your fucking job!"

He reached for his radio and called it in.

"Base! Base!" he cried, warily glancing at me, "I caught a murder. Murderer, I mean, at the old Wilkerson place! Send people! Backup, and you know, all that!"

"_Randy? Is that you?_" a querulous female voice came out of his radio, "_Don't you be foolin' around over official channels now!_"

He answered, "I ain't foolin' around Tiffany, Roger Wilkerson's deader'n a doornail on the floor in the kitchen, with this biker chick standin' over 'im! Get the Chief out here, right away!"

"_Are you serious? Roger dodgers really dead?_"

"Yep, deader'n the _Herald Tribune_."

"_Okay, hang on, I'll send the crew out there."_

"Officer Reardon, out!" He looked at me, a little more relaxed now, and said, "Okay, now what Ms. Lehane?"

"Well, we could wait outside."

"Uh, okay," he said.

I marched him out the kitchen door to his patrol car and put his bullets in the trunk. We walked around the house to the front steps and waited. When I could see another car arrive at the top of the hill, I said, "Now look, if you say anything about my disarming you, you'll look like a complete idiot." A car marked 'Police' pulled up next to us and Officer Reardon walked over. A large red-faced man in a tan and black uniform got out of the car. He looked like he'd slept in his clothes for a night or two. He glanced at me and glared when I nodded to him with a friendly smile, then went on into my house with his officer. He was the same guy who'd given me the hard look back in town, before I got to the diner. I snaked my phone out from my front pocket and hit 'Lawyer' on the speed dial.

"_Woodman & Weld,"_ the receptionist warbled in my ear.

"Hi, this is Faith Lehane. I need to speak to Bill Eggers – it's kind of an emergency."

"_Yes ma'am,"_ she answered with gratifying response. Much better than the original frosty reception I got from her this morning. After a couple of clicks I heard:

"_Bill Eggers."_

"Uh, hi. This is Faith. I walked into the Wilkerson house out here on Long Island and I found Roger Wilkerson dead on the kitchen floor. Seconds later the village idiot masquerading as a cop found me standing over the body and detained me. I'm outside while he and the Police Chief check out the crime scene."

"_All right Faith, don't say anything to the police except for your name – and don't bullshit around, give them your real name. But otherwise, don't volunteer any information, don't answer any question, don't even ask for water. If they give you a glass, don't touch it. Stand mute – you understand me?"_

"Yeah Bill, I do."

"_How come he let you have a phone?"_

"He hasn't arrested me yet and didn't search me."

"_Great,"_ he answered, _"Has he read you your rights?"_

"No."

"_Alright, I'm gonna send another lawyer out. His name is Stone Barrington. He handles our criminal work..."_

"But I'm not a criminal! Well, not anymore anyway."

"_Uh, yeah – I don't want to hear it. Look, Stone used to be a homicide detective in the City, so he knows what he's doing and can cut through the cop's bullshit. Trust me, he's who you need."_

"Uh oh, I think the rest of the troops are arriving, I better put the phone away before they notice it."

"_Okay, sit tight, say nothing except, 'I want to talk to my lawyer.' Don't mention that you already have, here's Stone number."_

He read it off, we said goodbye and I entered the number into my phone. Then I checked to make certain it was set on 'silent', and slipped it back into my pocket. I sat down on the low stone wall to the side of the steps.

A few minutes later a van pulled up. It was labeled:

**New York State Police**

**Bureau of Criminal Investigation **

**Crime Scene Unit**

I actually cheered up at that, these guys might actually know what they're doing, unlike the locals. Then a couple more police cars arrived, and two more cops got out and stomped into the house. A minute later all the cops and the Chief came out, apparently ejected by the State guys. They didn't look happy about it, but what could they do? Well for one thing, they could hassle me, the fuckers.

The Chief said to me, "So why'd you kill 'em, sweetcheeks?"

Oh great, idiot Randy didn't fall far from the tree. I answered, "I want to talk to my lawyer."

One of the newly arrived cops drawled, "So, you think you're a jailhouse lawyer?"

Shit, these guys are all inbred. "I want to talk to my lawyer."

"Oh crap, what are you, a broken record?"

"I want to talk to my lawyer."

"Hey! You say that one more time and I'll..."

I said very slowly, sneering right into his face, "I – want – to – talk – to – my – lawyer."

"I'll wipe that smile right offa yer..."

The Chief intruded, "Forget it Bob. Let's take her back to the station and call legal aid..."

This time I said, "No, I want to talk to _my_ lawyer, not yours. I just need a phone to call him."

"So where's a pretty little girl like you get the scratch to afford her own lawyer?"

"I have the firm of Woodman & Weld on retainer, and I want to talk to my lawyer."

I could tell by the blank looks that they weren't familiar with W&W, but they understood the retainer part.

"Get this chief, a retainer!"

The Chief commanded, "Read her her rights and formally arrest her, then drive her to the station."

He didn't sound stupid anymore.

As we trooped into the station, I could see that Officer Randy was worrying about his bullets, but couldn't figure out what to do about it. He was just dumb enough to put the fear of looking stupid in front of his brother officers above telling them about how he had been deftly de-bulleted. And he couldn't open his trunk and get his bullets out of the baggie in front his buddies without getting a lot of hard-to-answer questions. His silence helped me more than him, I think. Of course, he may have been confused about my actions, too.

They gave me a phone call, then they put me in an interrogation room and uncuffed me. I guess they figured that I couldn't overpower them and escape. I wasn't planning on disabusing them of that notion since I couldn't see that it would gain me anything. They still hadn't got around to frisking me. Besides the phone, I had a stake in each boot, a wire hidden in the stitching of my belt (very useful for decapitating demons that prove resistant to getting staked in the heart – not so useful while stuck in a cop shop), a combination tool in my jacket pocket that included pliers, screwdrivers, some bent thing I couldn't identify, and a wrench; credit cards, money, and an emergency magical _help-come-get-me_ thingy – it looked like nothing more than a smooth pebble and tended to follow me around in a very subtle manner. Even if they found it and took it away and locked it up somewhere, sooner or later it would end up back in my pocket – a very useful property for an alarm button.

I gazed out a window covered in heavy metal mesh and drifted off into violent daydreams about ways I should've tortured Robin and his fling. I've reformed of course – I wouldn't actually _do_ it anymore – but it soothed me to imagine slipping my knife slowly between his ribs...

An hour later I was half asleep, my eyes almost but not quite completely shut, when I became aware of people talking behind the mirror on the wall. I knew this was a one-way mirror of course, and I'm sure most people couldn't hear quiet conversation from the other side, but Slayer hearing does come handy sometimes. There were three cops talking about me. It seems Randy was disgusted that a 'murderer' could be so relaxed so soon after doing the deed, but the other two were doubtful that I was guilty of anything other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The State Crime Scene guys showed up and one did some tests on me, including a Gun Shot Residue test. Luckily, I hadn't shot a gun in quite a while, so they had nothing to hold me on. But they did anyway, until my lawyer got there.

I walked down the steps with Stone Barrington. The way he handled the cops was pretty impressive. Of course they didn't actually have any evidence, so they had to let me go sooner or later in spite of their extreme suspicions. But Stone managed it sooner, with only a stern warning from the cops not to leave the area. I asked him, "Do you know if they impounded my motorcycle? Or is it still at the house? You do know about my house, right?"

"Yes, Bill Eggers filled me in." We stopped by a very expensive looking Mercedes. Stone held the passenger door open for me and said, "I'll take you back to your house while we talk."

"This is one nice ride," I said.

"Yeah, it's a Mercedes E55 AMG.

"Nice."

"Let's talk business. First of all, you know about attorney-client privilege?"

"Yep, all about it."

"I expected so. Since I am 'of counsel' to Woodman & Weld, and you have them on retainer, we already have a legal relationship."

"What does 'of counsel' mean?"

"It means that I take care of anything that is too messy for the fancy lawyers in the office to get involved with. Criminal law, mostly. It's a legal fiction that keeps the squeaky clean, clean. Woodman & Weld is an exclusive law firm that deals mostly with very wealthy clients. But, it seems that even the extremely wealthy occasionally run afoul of the law, and of course they have very privileged children that break the law with some monotony, so they need me from time to time."

"I see it must pay well."

"So tell me Faith, did you kill your cousin?"

"No. I was trying to figure out how to get him to be a little friendlier to me, but he was bound and determined to piss-off everyone around him."

"Okay, I believe you. Although if the GSR hadn't been negative I might not be so certain."

"There is one little thing I should tell you about."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, it's kind of embarrassing but potentially troublesome. See, when Patrolman Randy walked in on me, he was very nervous. In fact, far more nervous and upset than the situation warranted–"

"Even with a recently dead body on the floor?"

"Yes. I could see in his eyes that he intended to shoot me, so I disarmed him."

"WHAT?"

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

**Faith, Hope & Charity**

_A Faith Lehane Mystery_

by

STFarnham

AKA Lancer47

AKA LancerFourSeven

**Chapter Five**

* * *

"You disarmed a police officer!" Stone exclaimed, "How?"

"Did I mention that I teach unarmed combat to police officers?"

"No," Barrington sighed heavily, "you left that out."

"Lots of things I haven't mentioned, but I'm trying to get you caught up. Anyway, I could see I was in trouble, so I took his gun and his extra clips, unloaded them, and put the bullets in the trunk of his car. I put the gun back in his holster and asked him to call the station and get the murder investigation going. Then we waited for his buddies to get there."

"So when his backup arrived, how come he didn't say anything about being disarmed?" Stone looked boggled.

"Did you get a chance to talk to Officer Randy?"

"No."

"Lucky you. He's a halfwit, he was far too worried about looking foolish in front of his peeps than doing what needed to be done. Besides, I still don't know why he was planning to fuckin' kill me."

"Yeah, how sure are you about that? I mean, is this sort of thing common for you?"

"Not precisely, but when I'm not teaching cops, sometimes I work as a bounty hunter." The bounty hunter thing was one of the cover stories Giles and Buffy and me (damn it! _me_ or _I_, I can't fucking tell!) had worked out; a preplanned position complete with a license from the state of Ohio. From time to time I even went after actual skips; it wasn't as good as slaying vamps, but it wasn't boring.

"Hmmm, okay. Let's suppose you were right, then that puts the Patrolman in line for a great deal of suspicion. I will investigate, you..."

"No no, I'll be right with you every step of the way. One interesting thing, Officer Randy knew my name."

"You mean he recognized your name at the station?"

"No, he called me 'Miss Lehane' at the house, before I introduced myself or was in any way identified, although I had told him I was the owner of Aunt Helen's house. I don't see how he could have gotten 'Lehane' form that, though."

"Hmmm." He was quiet for the rest of the ride, I could almost hear the wheels turning in his head as he thought about it. We pulled up to Aunt Helen's house – no, it was _my_ house now – and there was crime scene tape over the door, but my bike was outside the tape right where I left it.

Stone took a long intense look at my Harley and said, "Nice bike." It looked like love at first sight.

"Yeah, it's my pride and joy." He didn't answer since he was too busy eye-fucking the Fat Boy and trying not to drool.

He finally shook himself loose and said, "Well, as nice as your ride is, it's not for me. So let's see about your house."

"Well," I said, "I guess I need to find a place to stay until they let me back in."

"Yeah, you can stay with me, I've got a couple of guest rooms. In the meantime, I think I'll take a look at the crime scene."

"Yeah? I know getting past yellow tape is easy, but then how do you make it look unbroken when we're through?"

"I have a rolls of crime-scene tape from all nearby police departments in my car."

I laughed, "Hey Stone, you and me's gonna get along." He casually ripped the tape off the door and wadded it up in his pocket. He opened the door and went in. I frowned, "Hey, the fuckin' cops didn't lock up! Any creep could walk in and steal my stuff!"

"Yeah, they probably plan to post someone here, so we'd better listen carefully for cars. Here, let's tape up the front door, and go around back. That way we have time to tape the door and stroll around the house as if we're a law-abiding lawyer and client inspecting the outside."

"Sounds good." I also rolled my Harley down the steps and parked it next to Stone's ride. I guess they must have towed Roger's car.

Back inside we looked around. I showed him the bloodstains where Roger ended up, and Stone looked around and found a couple of bullet holes. He didn't say much. I noticed an expensive looking pen on the counter next to the phone, and weirdly, a large white feather on the floor at the edge of the bloodstain. Huh, where did that came from? I wondered.

We wandered through the rest of the first floor. He stopped in front of a painting of Greenwich Village – I knew that's what it was because it was labeled 'Greenwich Village in the Spring', so I pretty much figured it out. I kinda liked it.

Stone said, "My mother was Matilda Stone, that's one of hers."

"Yeah? I like it."

"Umm, you should check your insurance policy, that's worth better'n a million dollars these days."

"You're shittin' me!"

"I shit you not. There's only about fifty Matilda Stone paintings in existence, and they're getting famous now."

"We'd better get going, I hear a car coming."

"I don't hear anything."

"Trust me, they're just coming through the gates."

He looked at me funny, but we went out the kitchen door. He stuck new cop-tape across the door frame and then we adopted casual expressions and strolled around the corner with intent to deceive.

I had parked my motorcycle next to Stone's car, just as if we had driven in together, to try to keep any officious little shits from impounding it. So we waited by Stone's car and watched a black Suburban drive up. "New York State government plates," I said to Stone.

"Yeah, I bet they're from BCI." At my look he elaborated, "Bureau of Criminal Investigation. They're major-crime investigators from the New York State Police. These people probably wanted to be FBI agents but didn't get accepted."

"Oh great, more incompetents."

"Probably not – the FBI turns away 95% or more of qualified applicants. The Staties are better trained than local police and sheriff departments, but sometimes they have major attitude because they couldn't get into the major leagues. Although some of them prefer being in the smaller jurisdiction of a state – I've heard it described as a large fish in a small pond being preferable to a small fish in large pond."

"Well, they couldn't be any worse than the local cops."

We shut up because they had pulled up and parked next to us. Two men and a woman got out, and they sure looked like Feds.

"Hello, I'm BCI Agent Black," said the woman, "and this is Agent Rastovich and Agent Collins. Are you the owners of this house?"

I said, "I am. I'm Faith Lehane, and this is my lawyer, Stone Barrington."

The agents nodded at us. If they were dismayed at having a lawyer present, they didn't show it.

"We're investigating the death of – "

"Yeah I know," I sighed, "Roger Wilkerson."

Black looked surprised. "No. We're investigating the death of Helen Wilkerson."

"Aunt Helen? Why? I thought she died of natural causes." I noticed Stone looking suddenly attentive, kind of like a bird dog that just spotted a duck falling to earth.

"No. She was stabbed in the neck with something like a large serving fork. It might have been an accident except there was nothing like a large fork in the room where she was found."

I was caught completely off-guard. Aunt Helen was killed by a vampire? Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck! I hate those fucking things! I suddenly felt out of breath. "I need to sit down," I nearly gasped. I felt clammy and hot and cold and angry and guilty all at the same time. Guilty, because I hadn't been there to protect her. Stone gave me a hand as I stumbled towards the steps and sat down.

Agent Black, a competent looking tall and athletic forty-something woman with brilliant red hair, helped me and sat next to me. She said, "I apologize, we didn't realize you didn't know she'd been murdered."

"Who would want to kill Aunt Helen?" I asked, more for form than anything else, vampires didn't need a reason other than being hungry.

"We don't know, but there are several possible motivations."

"Really? She was nice. I thought everybody liked her. I know I did."

"She was worth a great deal of money, she controlled much more, and several people had expressed the desire to outlive her. One of our chief suspects, however, appears to be dead now."

I noticed Agent Rastovich was typing away at his laptop. He looked up and said, "Yep, it was today, Roger Wilkerson was found dead, here at this house, by this young lady right here." Three pairs of eyes swiveled accusingly in my direction.

"Hey, I didn't kill him – " I was going to explain about the restaurant in the village before I discovered him shot in the kitchen, but Stone interrupted me.

"At this time my client has nothing to say to you on this matter. Right?" He turned to bore a look into my eyes.

"Hey, I'm innocent," I said, innocently, "I have nothing to hide..."

But Stone continued on right over my words, "Faith, trust me, don't talk. There is nothing you can say to police officers that can help you, _especially_ when you're innocent. From this point on, say nothing without my direct okay." He smiled apologetically to the Agents. Surprisingly, they looked like they agreed, although they were obviously irritated.

Agent Rostovich said, "Our own crime scene unit was here this morning at the request of the local police, and they did a GSR test on Ms Lehane – it was negative."

The Agents all relaxed – but just a little. Agent Black said, "So it was self-defense?"

"What? No!" I exclaimed, "I don't know – " But Stone stopped me again.

"My client has nothing to say to you at this time," he repeated, "please stop questioning her until we have a more formal arrangement."

Agent Black said, "All right, all right, you're not an active suspect for Roger, but you are at least a witness, even if after the fact. But you are a suspect for your aunt's murder, since you had motive." I glared at the Agents. I started to reply heatedly, but Stone put his hand on my shoulder with unmistakable motions to keep my fucking mouth closed.

Black finally said, "Shall we go inside and look around?"

I was going to give them a smart-assed comment, but Stone's instructions were starting to take hold. I didn't understand why though, doesn't being innocent count? Maybe not, I could remember some of my fellow inmates – I was one the very few who didn't loudly proclaim my innocence at every turn – a few of them, though, a few of them I think were telling the truth. And how awful would that be? To be imprisoned for a crime that one didn't commit, and everyone laughing at you for claiming you didn't do it. It was bad enough to be there when I was actually guilty.

Agent Black and Stone unnecessarily helped me up and we followed the other two agents in. I expressed surprise and indignation at the fact that my front door wasn't locked. It was a wasted effort, no one cared except me.

We all trooped into the kitchen and stared at the blood stained floor.

Stone asked, "When can you release the house? My client needs a place to stay."

"A few days, I think," said Black.

Agent Rastovich asked, "How come there isn't anyone at the guard house? According to the background material, there's supposed to be a security company watching over the place."

"I don't know," I replied, "Bill Eggers mentioned that to me too."

"Who's Bill Eggers?" asked Agent Black.

"My lawyer."

"I thought this was your lawyer," said Agent Black, pointing at Stone.

"Yeah, yeah, Bill Eggers is also one of my lawyers." I rummaged through my coat pockets and found the envelope that Bill had given me.

Barrington said, "Mr. Eggars is a senior partner at Woodman and Weld and he is Ms Lehane's personal attorney, I am of counsel to W&W and take care of any criminal aspects."

Apparently the BCI agents understood that. I opened the envelope from from Eggars and read it. "Hmm, here's the info on the Security Company. I suppose I should call them."

I called the company but they were cautious with me, since they didn't know me and the new ownership paperwork hadn't caught up to them, but they finally agreed that whether or not I was who I said I was, there should be someone on duty at the gate and they would send someone to find out why the guard was missing 'forthwith'. Stone and I spent the next twenty minutes watching the Agents investigate the crime scene. Then we heard sirens.

Black got on her phone and walked away for a private conversation. I didn't advertise that I could still hear her. But what I heard was disquieting, to say the least. She turned around and said, "They discovered the guard, he's dead, stuffed under the desk at the shack. The local police are there now. Rastovich, you're with me, Collins, secure this scene – Mr. Barrington and Ms. Lehane, follow us."

It took us all of five minutes to sort out our vehicles and drive up to the gate, which was surrounded by cop cars and an ambulance and two private security cars. The BCI agents immediately took charge, saying this was tied with their investigation. And Patrolman Randy was there, oh joy.

While the various types of cops did their cop-thing in the shack, I mused out loud, "Officer Reardon. You must have been at the house this morning before me. Why?"

"Huh?" he answered.

"Why were you at the house this morning?"

Agent Rastovich heard me and stepped over curiously. Stone was doing his Labrador act again, and he didn't shut me up. Apparently I could ask questions as long as I didn't answer any.

"Uh, I came in after you did."

"No, well you may have followed me into the house, but you had to have driven your car there first, otherwise, I would have heard you. And I didn't. Plus you were parked around the side in front of the garage, I remember seeing the back end of your car although I didn't see enough of it to notice it was a cop car."

Stone said, "She's got you there, she could hear cars driving up to the gate here before I did. She surely wouldn't have missed your car crunching on the gravel."

The Police Chief started looking grim and the other two cops were staring at Randy.

Stone asked, "Have you fired your weapon today?"

"No, no, of course not," he said, a little too quickly.

"So you don't mind if the BCI Agents check that out with a GSR test?"

"Fine, oh wait, you know, I was at the range yesterday," he added unconvincingly.

One of the other cops said, "No you weren't. I was range safety officer yesterday, and you weren't there."

A few more minutes of back and forth resulted in Agent Black saying, "Your gun please. I need you to sit in back of my car, we'll take you back to your station where my technicians can test your hands."

He handed his gun to her angrily, glaring tensely at everybody. Black, taking the gun and frowning at the weight of it, popped the clip. Uh oh.

"Do you usually carry your weapon unloaded, Officer? Are you not allowed to have any bullets, or did you just forget to reload?"

The Chief was doing a slow burn. Randy stumbled and gulped and stuttered, "No, no, I never forget!"

I glanced at Stone with a questioning expression. He shook his head at me, giving me a faint scowl. The urge to confess my disarming of the cop was almost overwhelming, but I was paying Stone Barrington for legal advice, it would be stupid not to take that advice. So I said nothing. I tried to look cool, calm, and collected. I just started to think about the vampires and demons I had faced, and came to the conclusion that these people couldn't hurt me, no matter what they did. The grouchy little voice in my head said they could shoot me, but surely not with my lawyer at my side, I replied to myself.

Officer Randy aimed a dirty look at me. He stuttered, he sweated, he started and stopped. Finally, he said, "I was about to arrest that bitch when she disarmed me and took my bullets."

Well, talk about an over-reaction – they all started talking at once, mostly at me, with Stone shouting, "Ms Lehane pleads the fifth!" over everyone's head – fuck 'em all, I thought. So I leaned against my bike, crossed my arms, shut my mouth and stared at the ocean out across the hills.

So, it wasn't exactly a surprise when they decided to arrest me again, and this time they remembered to search me and besides confiscating most of my weapons (they missed the garrote and were utterly befuddled by my stakes) they had the motherfucking balls to tow my pride and joy.

Stone whispered in my ear, "Keep fucking quiet! Don't say anything at all! Shut the fuck up! I don't care what they tell you, they'll be lying, say nothing without me! Even when I'm there, say nothing without my explicit go-ahead. I _will_ get you out, _if_ you don't say anything! You don't know what other people, witnesses, have told them, you don't know what they know, you don't know what they think of their own officer, you don't know what the BCI knows. Until we find out, say nothing! They already know your name, so be silent about _everything_."

Okay, okay! Stop whispering in my ear, I get the message – fuck me raw, I'll scream silently.

At least they put Deputy Randy on suspension, taking his badge and gun.

TBC

_A/N:_

_Here's a link to a most amazing lecture by a Law Professor about why you should never ever answer a police officer's questions, complete with examples of how you can get into trouble whether you are guilty or innocent, smart or foolish, truthful or not, or any combination of those. __http:/ www. youtube __.com /__watch?v =6wXkI4t7nuc_

_For the link to work, you have to remove the spaces._


	6. Chapter 6

**Faith, Hope & Charity**

_A Faith Lehane Mystery_

by

STFarnham

AKA Freelancer47

* * *

**Chapter Six**

The clang of the jail cell door shutting me in was familiar, but it sure as fuck wasn't soothing. I thought this was behind me, but once a fucking felon, always a fucking felon, ain't that the American way? I'll admit to feeling a certain amount of dread and even despair, but I pushed that crap aside and put my trust in my lawyers and lay down on the bunk with my hands behind my head and stared at the ceiling, contemplating my fucked-up future, or lack of it.

At least this was small-town local jail, after my time in a state prison this was way easy, but I was afraid I wouldn't be here long. I knew if Stone didn't get me out, sooner or later they'd transfer me to Riker's Island – the local cops had some sort of complicated connection with the NYPD.

Earlier, before they put me in the cage, I sat quietly at a detectives' desk and watched, not saying a word, staring as they filled out paperwork. When they formally read me my rights it really pissed them off when I stayed silent. Good.

When they finally got around to doing a background check and discovered my previous incarceration (now there's word that I _didn't_ learn from Giles) for murder and escape it seriously put them on edge – I thought I could hear one of the cops grinding her teeth while she glared at me. I think in an earlier age they would have broke out the rubber hoses right about then.

When they discovered my unconditional pardon they stared at me like I was some kind of evil nightmare, a couple of them wondering out loud if I had blackmailed somebody. And then when they found out how much I was worth they got even edgier and nervous besides – you can bet your ass that nervous cops make _me_ nervous. Still, in the end they had not a single shred of evidence that I was guilty of anything except for the thing with the bullets, but since the half-wit ass-faced cop wasn't lookin' too good, I think they were kinda hoping that incident would get lost in the shuffle.

After a nearly sleepless night, I was given a bowl of gray sludge that tasted worse than it looked for breakfast - it might have been imported from the California prison system. I couldn't eat much of it. Finally, I was escorted to an interview room, the same room as the day before, and I could hear people behind the one-way mirror, as before. They didn't have anything new to say. Finally, Stone arrived. At last, a friendly face.

"How're you holding up, Faith?" he asked.

"Alright."

"They haven't tried to interview you?"

"Nope. Just fucking paperwork that I've ignored. I haven't said a word to anyone until just now."

"Good, good. I know it's difficult not to try and explain what happened, but trust me, this is the way out."

He opened his leather satchel and took out several files. I could see my name on them, and I also saw the California State seal on a couple more folders. I didn't have to look any closer to know at least some of those files were from the California State Correctional System.

"So Faith," said Stone, "you might have mentioned your time in prison, and your escape. You really shouldn't blindside your lawyer like this if you want to say free."

"It's all water under the bridge. You did notice the full pardon, didn't you?"

"Yes, it's seems a bit irregular, though. I mean there's a file here from the State Department! I'm sure it'd be interesting reading, if most of the pages weren't blacked out. What the hell did you do?"

"State Department? Huh, I didn't realize..."

"So can you fill me in?"

"No, I can't really talk about any of it. Those papers and files are all you're gonna get, I think they're enough."

"Okay, so how did you get a pardon? Two pardons, really, one for murder and the other for escaping. In all my years as a cop and a lawyer, I've never seen that before, never even heard of such a thing. And from a law-n-order Republican governor too."

"Yeah, I wish I could tell you, but..."

The door opened and two detectives with two BCI agents walked in. I let Stone do the talking.

"Mr. Barrington, Ms Lehane," said Agent Black, sitting down across from me. She placed a folder in front of her, squared it up to the table, and opened it. She read for a couple of minutes. Was this supposed to make me anxious? If so, it wasn't working. I let out a big luxurious yawn and stretched my arms out. I thought I saw the detectives frown a little.

"So, are you ready to explain your actions, Ms Lehane?"

I looked at Stone. He said, "Ms Lehane believed she was in danger, so she removed Patrolman Reardon's bullets, then asked him to call his superiors. As my subsequent conversations with the officer progressed, I could only admire her restraint, as in my opinion, Reardon appears to be a danger to the public. Ms Lehane's job in Ohio is training police officers, which gives her a certain expertise. Ms Lehane has nothing else say at this time."

"And that's it? That's all?" She turned to me and said, "If you don't talk to us, we'll have no choice but arrest you. Your record doesn't help you."

She'd been much friendlier yesterday, at my house. I leaned back in my chair and stared out the window. The detectives and agents exchanged glances.

Finally, Agent Black said, "Fuck it, you're free to go."

There was more to it than that, of course. There was paperwork to sign (each sheet vetted by Stone before I would even read it), and more irritating warnings about not leaving the area. They were reluctant to give me back my Harley, but they didn't have a reason to keep it besides wanting to be assholes, anyway they finally gave in to Stone's legalese.

They never let me forget they were mad at me for disarming their cop, and the local cops really, _really_ wanted to charge me with assault on a police officer. But the state agents disagreed, and since I hadn't fired a gun recently, and Officer Randy Reardon had after he claimed not to, I was just barely in the clear, for the moment anyway. Then Stone asked the deputy how he knew my name before he should of right after I disarmed him; he had no good explanation so this started a whole new donnybrook.

It would be some time before they had a ballistics report on the bullets – apparently testing these things takes longer in real life than they do on TV – so Officer Reardon was still on suspension, not arrested. I got the idea that the BCI agents were prepared to arrest Reardon shortly after they get the report, depending on the results of course.

I know I was lucky – I think the fucking cops would have found a reason to hold me much longer if it weren't for my high-powered attorney. It was also entirely possible that the local cops figured my impressive legal help wouldn't need a lot of prodding to start a lawsuit against their very small department, so they didn't want to supply even the slightest excuse. I was beginning to see that having fucking wheelbarrows of money had advantages, I could get used to this.

I wondered if I should send a thank-you card to Bill Eggars, with a note saying he was right, Woodman & Weld was worth every fucking dollar I was paying them. Maybe when this was all behind me, along with a check which would probably be fucking huge. Do they even sell _'Thanks for keeping me out of prison'_ cards?

"So," I said to Stone as we walked down the front steps of the police station, "you still have a spare bedroom for me? Or do you not care for my colorful past? If that's the case, I can get a good hotel room."

"No no, that's all right," said Stone. He didn't seem twitchy, so maybe he didn't think I was too awful. "You won't be the first convicted murderer to have slept under my roof. Do I have your word that you won't kill me?"

I laughed, "Hey, don't worry 'bout it, Stone, I'm reformed. I got all kinds of people who'll vouch for me, including a whole lotta cops back in Ohio, a few that have personally thanked me because my training kept them fucking alive in really dodgy circs."

We stopped by an expensive looking Mercedes. I said, "Your car? Nice."

Stone said, "Mecedes E55 with the hot engine." He held the passenger door open for me. I couldn't remember the last time a man did that for me.

Stone was a smooth and confident driver who stayed precisely ten MPH above the speed limit, at least when traffic allowed, as we cruised along the Long Island Expressway towards the City. So I was able to relax and even close my eyes for a few minutes. In fact, I fell asleep. I was surprised when he shook me awake.

"Hungry?" he asked.

"Sure."

"We're eating at Elaine's. This is sort of a regular spot for me."

"Don't worry, I won't fuck it up for you."

"We'll probably be joined by my old partner, Dino. He's now the Chief of the Homicide Squad, so he's kind of an important guy in the NYPD."

"Stop worrying, fuck, you'd think I was some kind of escaped convict or something."

"Well, it'll be interesting to see what he thinks of you."

"Yeah, I can hardly wait," I said.

He parked the car in a small lot about a block away and we strolled along the sidewalk towards the restaurant. I could sense someone ahead, hiding in the shadows. I wondered what that was about until he jumped in front of us and waved a knife in my face. "Gimme yer fuckin' money ya fuckin' motherfuckers!" he shouted at us.

I could see Stone going for his gun. I could smell some demon in the mugger so I leaned forward and growled as ferociously as a slayer could, "I'm gonna rip your fuckin' balls off and stuff them down your fuckin' throat, one at a time, sliced, if you don't turn around and run away!" Apparently he believed me because he dropped his knife in fear, turned, and ran like hellhounds were on his heels.

Stone said, "Holy shit! Howd'ya do that?"

"It's a gift," I said modestly. "You can put your gun away now."

"Oh, yeah. You know, that's a hell of a gift, Faith. Hell of a gift."

I picked up the knife and casually drove it into the grout line of the brick wall next to me. Then I snapped the handle off – I pretended it was a strain for Stone's benefit – and tossed the handle down the alley into a dumpster. "Cheap fuckin' knife," I said. Stone blinked, but didn't say anything.

Half a block later we turned into Elaine's. Looked like a pretty cool restaurant to me. Full of people talking and laughing and drinking and eating without a fucking care in the world. It seemed a kind of trendy place with half the men dressed in black from head to foot, the other half wearing Dockers with blue shirts, a sprinkling like Stone in expensive suits or sports coats. Most of them weren't obnoxious fuckers, but they weren't even close to my kind of people. Still, I could put up with them in between slaying nasty creatures, at least once in a while.

The hostess, Elaine I assumed, showed us to a table where we joined two other people. Stone said, "Faith, this is my old partner in crime, Dino, and my sometimes new partner in crime, Holly Barker. She used to be the Chief of Police in Orchid Beach, Florida, but now she works for a branch of the Federal Government and doesn't like me mentioning it to people she doesn't know."

Holly smiled at me, offered her hand, and said, "Hi Faith, we all just ignore Stone here when he starts chattering on."

I laughed and shook her hand. Stone continued, "Faith inherited from her aunt, and while checking out the old family mansion discovered her cousin freshly murdered in the kitchen."

In an aside to me, he asked, "You don't mind if I bring them up to date, do you?" I nodded okay, reluctantly.

"So far, one of the cops out on Long Island looks good for the murder." Both Holly and Dino frowned heavily at that. I guess they didn't like it when one of their own was implicated in a crime.

"What's good here?" I asked, as my stomach rumbled.

"Everything honey," said Elaine from over my shoulder, "but the specialty of the house is_ Osso Bucco_."

"All right, I'll have that. I don't know what it is, but bring me plenty. I could eat a horse."

"It's braised veal, with veggies and potatoes, and it's amazing," said Stone.

"Bring it on," I replied as my stomach growled. I grabbed some bread. "You know, I'm pretty hungry, bring me a double order of everything."

"That's quite a lot of food..."

"Yes, I'm sure. Whatever I don't eat, I'll take home."

Elaine nodded, I guess that seemed reasonable to her.

We ate and talked, Stone filling in the Homicide Chief and his mysterious government woman on my case. Holly perked up a little at Stone's description of the State Department file. She watched me carefully the rest of the evening.

Eventually, Stone and I ended up back at his Turtle Creek house. I quite liked the place, it had a lot of fancy woodwork that I'm sure Xander would enjoy, but mostly I was thinkin' about the second 'H', having eaten two complete servings of _osso bucco_, which I'm tellin you, is pretty fuckin' good.

Stone asked me, "You want to see more paintings like yours?"

I must've looked as blank as I felt. Stone leaned in and brushed strands of hair from my forehead. I could hear his heartrate increase – mine too. "I have three upstairs," he paused with a sincere look, "in my bedroom."

"I like paintings," I said.

* * *

Sunlight shining in my face woke me up. I rolled over and took a moment to remember where the fuck I was. Oh yeah, Stone Barrington's bedroom. Stone was still out like light, I got up and walked around the room gathering up my clothes. I stopped to stare at the Matilda Stone paintings on the wall, I hadn't got around to checking them out the night before. The phone rang and Stone snaked an arm out from under the covers and grabbed it. He looked over and noticed me standing naked in front of the bed.

He said into the phone, "Ahh, what? Say that again please? Oh, yeah okay."

I asked, "Which way is the bathroom?"

"That way," he said, pointing. "That was my secretary, breakfast will be ready in twenty minutes."

Twenty minutes later I sat down in the breakfast nook and started in on sausage and eggs. His secretary hadn't even raised an eyebrow when I got off the elevator with Stone, she just handed him several envelopes and the morning paper. Now that's the kind of secretary I need, if I needed a secretary, which I don't.

"So Stone, what's next?"

"I'm not real sure. The state cops are trying to find the killer, and while we might nose around a little, mostly they'd be quite put out if we got in the way."

"Hmm, yeah, it's definitely my policy to stay under the cops radar."

"Yeah," he laughed, "good luck with that. The BCI tried to find out what was in those classified records of yours, and they got slapped down by the Feds. They aren't at all happy about it. But, this does work in your favor because there isn't a single damn thing they can do about it. It also means that your past is pretty much off the table. Oh, they can hold it against you, they can be bitter about not knowing what happened to you and how you got the pardon, but legally it's not applicable today. And that's good."

"Huh."

"So," Stone paused, hoping I think I would break my silence, "the next step, I'll find out when you can get into your house, it seems to me that we could nose around your aunt's personal things and maybe get a feel for what was going on in her life that might have attracted a bad element. Helen also had a personal secretary, we need to interview her. Probably the cops are talking to her, but we can to, after all, she's now your personal secretary. At least for now."

"I hope she has other prospects lined up, cause I sure as hell don't need a secretary."

"Hmmm, don't be too quick to fire her, even if you don't need her in the long term, you may find her useful for a few months."

"Okay. Besides, I've never fired anyone, can't say that's anything I'd want to do, although I suppose I've done harder stuff."

Yeah, and I was missing it too. A vampire slayer's gotta hunt, tonight won't be too soon.

TBC

_A/N:_

_Staples of almost every Stone Barrington novel include Elaine's and the osso bucco, his old partner Dino, the Turtle Creek house and mention of the woodwork, his mother's paintings, his airplanes, his secretary and women. Barrington seems to have some sort of magical field that has every good looking woman mentioned in the book hop into bed with him. _


	7. Chapter 7

**Faith, Hope & Charity**

_A Faith Lehane Mystery_

by

STFarnham

AKA Freelancer47

**Chapter Seven**

Back at Stone's house, after yet another late evening at Elaine's restaurant, we ended up back at the Turtle Bay house. Another evening of sex – Stone was a satisfying and inventive lover, I'll give him that, but he lacked passion. Now that I'm a worldly wise twenty-something (I'm fuckin' kidding) I had learned enough not to blurt out what I was thinking, most of the time anyway. And what I thought was that Stone was pining away for the love of his life, and trying to make up for that lack by filling his life with as many women as he could convince to hop in bed with him. Seeing as he was well-off, good looking, had a fine house, and was a hell of a good lawyer, he was very successful in that endeavor. Nothing I could do about whoever was missing from his life though.

"Hey Stone, how come you sometimes say 'Turtle Creek' instead of 'Turtle Bay'?"

"There used to be a creek here, but they filled it in and replaced it with a storm drain. Then they filled in the bay, so even that's just an old tradition now. Mind you, that was just after the civil war, no one alive today has ever seen either the bay or the creek."

"Okay," I said, not that interested in fucking ancient history. I turned over and pretended to go to sleep.

Around midnight I got up without waking Stone, dressed in black jeans, dark gray hoodie over a dark blue shirt, and steel-toed black boots. I snuck downstairs, quietly eased the front door opened, and was blasted by flashing lights and a siren. Fucking burglar alarm. Seconds later Stone came bounding athletically down the stairs, waving his gun.

"Whoa officer! It's just me, goin' out for a walk."

He slowed down, pointed his pistol at the floor and safed it. "You just about gave me a heart attack, you should have told me you planned to go out." He went to the hall closet, opened a panel and entered a code, and the silence was golden.

He took a good long look at me and said, "Do you want to tell your lawyer anything?"

"No."

"I thought not. Still, we do have lawyer-client privilege, you can tell me anything, anything short of plans to commit murder anyway."

"Hey, I'm just going for a walk, nothing to do with the case, and I will try hard to stay out of trouble." I didn't see any upside in burdening him with my plans for hunting vampires and demons.

He sighed, "Okay, here's a key, and here's the code to get back in. If you go through the kitchen you'll find a door to the common gardens in back. Much easier to get in and out without being noticed."

Fuck me, I guess he really did trust me not do anything felonious, or he was giving me enough rope to hang myself, I wasn't sure which.

So Turtle Bay is on the East side of Manhattan, near the UN building, not far from Sutton Place. I didn't really know the neighborhood very well – stands to reason since I didn't know the City, but from the looks of the buildings and the incredibly expensive cars parked on the streets, I assumed this was a place for rich fuckers. I stopped dead in my tracks – _I_ was one of those rich fuckers now; how strange was that? But I was still the nastiest motherfucking predator on the streets, no matter how much money I had.

Okay, I thought, time to get my shit together and concentrate on hunting. I let my my thoughts go blank, leaned back and breathed the air, and reached out to feel the night with all my senses. I felt drawn north and west, and as an experienced Slayer I knew when to follow that feeling, so after I walked about twenty blocks or so I found myself in Central Park. Hmmm, might be good hunting here, I'd heard that this wasn't exactly the safest part of the city at night, although native New Yorkers took some kind of perverse pride in telling me how much worse it used to be.

I started jogging along a dirt path, headed north, and it wasn't long before that disgusting dead smell tickled my nose. Oh yeah, there's vamps here.

It was only a few minutes before I could hear a three people ahead, two staggering drunkenly along the jogging path and the third seemed to be ahead of the other two. The woman was saying, "This doesn't look like the way to_ Via Quadronno_, you sure we aren't lost?" Her words were slurred, oh yeah, she had definitely overindulged.

One of her companions answered, "Yeah, yeah, I know exactly where I am, and the all you can eat bar is just up ahead, it's to die for, count on it."

Fucking vampires, I thought, where do these assholes come up with this shit? Suddenly, the woman said, "Who's that guy? What's goin' on here?" Now she was worried, apparently the other vamp just showed himself.

"Hey, hey, honey," said the first vamp, "not to worry, we're just gonna share a little, that's all!"

"FUCK OFF!" I could hear sounds of struggle now. "OW! LET ME GO YOU ASSHOLES!" Followed by a thump.

"What the hell didja do?" asked the second vamp.

"Nuthin', she just passed out. Too much vodka, I guess."

"Yeah? You suppose her blood will taste like a Bloody Mary?"

"Nah, drunks taste more like a fuckin' sewage dump. We probably should let her dry out a little, use her up in the morning."

"Fuck that, I'm hungry now."

Okay, time to swoop in and kick ass. "Hey assholes, can I join this party?"

"Hey babe, the more the ..." I wasn't in the mood to fuck around, I just slammed my fucking stake right into the fucking vamps fucking chest and stood back while he fucking dusted. The other one was shocked witless.

"What the...?" he managed.

"Come on bloodsucker, come out swingin'. Don't bother running neither, the way I feel I'll just run you down that much faster."

He tried to fight me, but he musta been a newbie, it wasn't no fight at all. Downright disappointing really. As he whooshed into dust, I heard a sound behind me. I swiveled – nothing – oh wait, the girl lying on the ground moaned. I kneeled to check her out.

"Hey, you alright?"

"Oooooooh, I don't think so. I saw you fighting those assholes, where'd they go?"

"They took off, didn't have it in 'em for a fight, fuckin' cowards."

"Oh, oooooh, god, yeah, thanks. I think they planned..."

"Yeah, it wouldn't have gone well for you. Come on, get up, let's get you back to, uh, where are you staying?"

She stood up and stumbled to the side of the trail and upchucked into the bushes. "Uh sorry 'bout that."

"Don't worry, we've all been there." Not since I became a Slayer, and there had definitely been times I'd drunk enough that I sure would've emptied my stomach all over the landscape before being slayerized. Damn, that's an advantage that isn't in the Slayer Handbook, I wonder what Giles will say when I propose adding that little tidbit?

"I live out on Long Island, in the Hamptons." She clumsily got to her feet, I steadied her, kept her from falling.

"Kind of a long way from home, aren't cha?"

"Yeah, I was drinking to forget... Well never mind that, find me a taxi and I'll get gone."

"Where's your purse? Phone? Money? Credit cards?" Her clothes were very expensive – after Buffy and Cordelia I had a pretty good idea what it cost to dress like that – so I knew she wasn't a deadbeat.

And when did I, Faith Lehane, street urchin, start caring about what people were worth? What the hell was the matter with me?

"Ah, I have no idea," she said, looking around blankly for her missing stuff.

"Come on, I can give ya a ride."

"So uh, what's your name?"

"Emily, Emily Thorne."

"I'm Faith Lehane. My bikes parked about twenty blocks from here, so we gotta hoof it, then..."

"Your BIKE? You expect to ride double on a bicycle out to Montauk?"

"Ah no, it's a Harley-Davidson..."

She interrupted me again. "No way, I'm too fucked-up to ride on the back of motorcycle, I'd probably fall off, let's think of something else."

"Well, you can sleep over at my lawyers house, that's where I'm spending the night."

"Yeah, suddenly I'm not in the mood for sleeping in stranger's houses, and I _really_ don't like lawyers much."

I laughed, "Yeah, I know what you mean, this ones pretty fucking good though."

But I'd had enough of trying to rescue drunk maidens, I saw a cab and flagged it down. I asked the cabbie how much to the Hamptons, gave Emily more than enough to cover it, and said, "See ya later, Em."

"Wait, how can I repay you?"

I wrote the address of my Sag Harbor house on a scrap of paper. "We're practically neighbors, just pay me back whenever. But wait a couple of weeks, the house is empty right now."

A week went by before the cops finally relented and let me back into my house. Did you see how quickly my aunt's house became my house in my head? I think that's human nature, but I gotta to tell you, I was really looking forward to going through that house. I suppose the detectives went through my aunt's personal papers, but I hoped they hadn't actually taken anything.

But more than anything else, I was really looking forward to doing _tai-chi_ up on the rooftop deck while the sun comes up over the ocean.

I drove by the guard shack and waved at Ernie, who waved back. My own fucking security guard. What the hell has my life come to? I've gotta do something about this, I mean shit, why does Faith the fucking Vampire-Slayer need a security guard at all? I drove up to my house, thought about driving up the steps again, but thought better of it, superstitious of me I guess, I mean the last time I did that I found a dead body in my kitchen. I wondered if anybody had cleaned up the blood. I parked the Fat Boy and walked around the house, just to make sure there weren't any cop cars littering my grounds. I finally went in, went to the kitchen, and …

"Who the fuck are you?" I asked.

"I am Jacques, your chef."

"Seriously?" He spoke with a French accent, I won't even try to reproduce that on paper, other than the occasional French word, misspelled probably, so you'll just have to imagine his accent.

"That is, if you are _mademoiselle_ Faith Lehane?"

"Yeah, yeah, that's me. Say Jack, whattaya think about cooking for a half-dozen or so girls, all healthy eaters I might add."

"I would rise to the challenge of such an occasion! But _mademoiselle_, my_, _how you say – appellation _– _is _Jacques_, not Jack."

"Okay, good to know Jacks, and for the record, I'd never say 'appellation'. Say, I could use a little something for lunch."

"_Oui mademoiselle_, I have some lovely fresh oysters from Chesapeake bay..."

"Sounds good to me." At his delighted look, I added, "I'm from Boston, seafood is in my soul. Actually, you'll find I eat pretty much anything, but I ain't used to fancy cooking – although I suppose I could _get_ used to it."

"Excellent. Lunch will be served in thirty minutes, will that work for you?"

"Sure thing Jock."

"_Jacques!" _He mumbled some rapid French that sounded uncomplimentary, so I made a mental note to figure out how to pronounce his name properly – if I liked his cooking.

I went to the library and grabbed that demonology book lying on the table, and then headed upstairs to find Aunt Helen's office. It was right where I remembered. I calculated the time in England – Giles should be finishing up his afternoon tea – and picked up the phone.

"Hey G, how are ya?" I asked when I got through to the ISWC.

"Spiffing, and how are you my dear?" He sounded tired, I think he was being ironic.

"Well, you're talking to an heiress now, I'm not used to it yet, although I suppose I'd have to admit it's better than living on the street – and I know from experience."

"H, h, heiress?"

"Yeah, my lawyer says I'm worth twenty million bucks or so now. Actually, I think he's undervalued the total, my house on Long Island might be worth that much alone."

"I was not aware you came from a monied family."

"Well, not on my mother's side, that's fer sure. But my Aunt Helen, mom's sister, had married well and she apparently thought highly of me."

"Your Aunt Helen?"

"Yeah, Helen Wilkerson."

"She had no other heirs?"

"Uncle Scott died in a yachting accident years ago, I have two cousins that each got a fair amount each, and then one ended up dead in Aunt Helen's house, I don't know who did it yet."

"But you're working on it?"

"Oh yeah, the cops are looking at me, and I gotta make sure the guilty parties get caught if I want to stay free."

"Do you need any help?"

Did he mean that, or was he just being polite? I didn't really know. Past experience with Giles didn't leave me all that trusting. "I don't think so, Helen's law firm, which now works for me, seems to be excellent."

"Good, good. Assuming you get this unpleasantness worked out, what do you plan to do with your windfall?"

"Well see, that's why I called. The house on Long Island sits on twenty acres, and there's another twenty acres of wetlands across the populated side which helps keep it private, and it's fuckin' huge, and it even comes with a staff. So I wondered if we could make it a 'Slayers East' headquarters. I'll rent it to the Council cheap, this place is too big for me alone, and I don't want to have to start firing people."

"Ah, I see. This may be cost effective, we certainly have many more Slayers than _I _know what to do with. How many are you thinking?"

Damn, I hadn't really thought this through. Obviously, SiTs meant Watchers, ideally in a one to one relationship, and I wasn't even sure how many bedrooms I had. "Ah, I'll have to see how many rooms I have, but I would think three or four to start with, plus a couple of Watchers, as long you don't send me fucktards."

"Not to worry, I don't have _any_ Watcher's to spare, but I'll have some girls there in a few of days. And Faith, the Council will support your efforts to the fullest, I am confident that you will succeed brilliantly." *

"Wait..."

"Thank you, have your solicitor send me the lease agreement, ta-ta."

"Wait, wait, … Giles?" Bastard hung up. Shit, what did I get myself into? And the staff, how will they react to a houseful of girls, what will they do if – or when – they find out about Slayers? Do they know anything about the supernatural world? And the neighbors, what will they think? Will the zoning board even _allow_ a half-dozen unrelated girls to live here? Giles didn't ask me how much, he must be really backed into a corner to agree that fast, without even negotiating a deal, or even making an on-site inspection. Fuck. And I didn't even get the chance to ask him about Aunt Helen. And I still gotta figure out who killed my asshole cousin.

I wandered down to the kitchen and sat at the oak table and watched Jacques work, I think I made him nervous.

"Would _mademoiselle_ care to eat in the dining room?"

I have a fucking dining room? "Nah, this is good. I like the view from here, the ocean and the garden is nice."

"_Ah oui,_" he said. "On the menu is a dozen oysters on the half shell, followed by oyster stew, followed by an oyster sandwich – the type referred to here in America as a _po-boy_ – with a salad of fresh greens from your own garden."

I think I was eight years old the first time I ever tasted raw oysters, I didn't care for them but I had to eat them anyway because the 'uncle' feeding them to me was a real bastard. But now I'm a fucking fire-breathing slayer, I can eat anything, so I said, "Damn, that sounds great. You know the whole time I was in California I didn't eat a single oyster. They do have them there, but I guess not in the restaurants that I frequented." Especially restaurants owned by the state penal system. I wonder if penal and penis come from the same root? Wouldn't surprise me, I sure felt fucked-over in prison.

He served me a dozen raw oysters on the half-shell, looked like fucking whale boogers to me. Still, I had watched people happily slurping them down so I squeezed lemon on one, added some red sauce, and ate it. It was, huh, it was indescribably good. How 'bout that? Amazing that something that looked so disgusting could taste fantastic.

The oyster stew was a revelation, and the sandwich was perfect, and the salad topped everything off. And I didn't have to pay $40.00 for it either.

As I strolled upstairs after lunch, I mentally kicked myself, I knew what Jacques earned annually, and if he didn't work weekends it would be about three hundred dollars a day, or a hundred dollars per meal, whether or not I ate here. Plus ingredients, and I would bet my motorcycle he didn't buy anything cheap. All of a sudden, that forty dollar lunch was starting to look inexpensive. Shit, was I becoming a cheap bastard as well as a rich fucker? No, I would not, I promised myself sternly – the chef stays.

Another stranger, apparently my secretary, approached me and asked if I wished to accept a call from a Mr. Barrington. She managed to get across the idea that if I didn't care to talk to such low individuals I could leave it up to her.

I laughed as I took the phone, "I'll always take Barrington's calls," I told her. I said into the phone, "Hey Stoney, what's up?"

"You want to join me this afternoon for a little investigating?"

"Fuck yeah, where?"

"Meet me at Woodman & Weld, then we'll go to Greenwich Village."

"Okay."

I handed the phone back to the woman. "Hi, I'm Faith, who are you?"

"I'm Stephanie Heliopolis, your Aunt Helen's secretary, and now your secretary, unless you have other plans."

"Hmm, for now, yes, but I don't know about your long-term employment. I've never actually needed a secretary before, so I don't really know what is that you do."

"I'll explain what I can do for you, if you have a little time."

"We'll do that, later. Right now I have to meet my lawyer."

"Hey Stone, is this the kind of neighborhood that's known for broken streetlamps?" By the time I rode into town and met up with Stone, it was dusk. We were sleuthing, backtracking cousin Roger's movements. Stone says the first thing you do in a murder investigation is learn all you can about the victim, so, here we are, skulking around his pad in the Village after spending a little time going through Roger's finances at the law office, which was possible because Roger left all that stuff up to his mother, who naturally had her lawyer take care of it.

"No, definitely not. The city maintenance department is very good about upkeep in these more upscale blocks."

"Hmmm," I murmured. I had spotted four young men hanging around beyond an architectural niche in the building front. I could hear them talking, and they were up to no good, even by my standards. I said quietly, "Watch out Stone, there's four guys lurking in the shadows up ahead." I also was aware of two behind us that I didn't care for. The distinctive smell of Hoppes gun oil was in the air – at least one ahead and one behind were armed, maybe more. _What to do now?_ I wondered.

"Four what?" Stone asked.

"What the fuck, Barrington, I thought you used to be a cop! Have all your street smarts evaporated?" He looked ahead in sudden understanding. I whispered, "You worry about the two behind us while I take care of the ones in front."

Three of them had stepped out in front of us and were trying to project menace. "Aren't you guys just adorable little wannabes!" I said before they could get a word in, pissing them off no end. They glanced at each other, off balance, trying to figure out how to answer me, so took a few fast steps and pushed between them, disarmed one, tossed another into the guy who was still in the shadow with a gun, made sure all were out for the count, when I heard two quick gunshots. I turned. I didn't see any blood, but Stone was standing still with his hands up. Two men beyond – one with a gun trained on Stone. Apparently he had shot into the air.

He said, "Well well well, as I live and breath, if it ain't Stone Barrington. And you must be that chick from the CIA I've heard so much about. Letting your women do the fighting now Stoney boy? Getting lazy in yer old age?"

CIA? What the fuck was that about? "Damn it Stone," I said, "can't you follow simple instructions?"

"And get us killed? They were armed, Faith."

"Yeah? So were these fuckers." I was still holding them down and had armed myself with two of their guns.

The talkative guy behind Stone said, "Sweetheart, drop the guns before I drop you."

"Right," I laughed, "no way motherfucker – surrender or die!" I just barely kept myself from laughing out loud when I said that. I was sure it was way over-dramatic and everyone else would just about die laughing, but they took it seriously.

"I guess I have to shoot your boyfriend then."

"He ain't my boyfriend." Just as I was about to put a bullet through the gap between Stone's arm and his ribcage in order to hit that asshole behind him, assuming of course that this gun was sighted in and accurate, I saw a shadow moving behind all of them. _Shit_, I thought, _another one_? But no, it was...

TBC

* BritSpeak to AmSpeak dictionary, or how to interpret British understatement and subtext (These phrases and the interpretations were grabbed off a random Internet site, so you just know they're absolutely accurate, ;-), ) :

When an Englishman says 'We will support your efforts', he usually means 'you're the only one who will do any work on this, good luck!'

'I am confident' usually means 'I am pretending not to worry.'

'Cost effective' often means 'cheap and nasty.'


	8. Chapter 8

**Faith, Hope & Charity**

_A Faith Lehane Mystery_

by

STFarnham

AKA Freelancer47

**Chapter Eight**

_Previously:_

"_I guess I have to shoot your boyfriend then."_

"_He ain't my boyfriend." Just as I was about to put a bullet through the gap between Stone's arm and his ribcage in order to hit that asshole behind him, assuming of course that this gun was sighted in and accurate, I saw a shadow moving behind all of them. Shit, I thought, another one? But no, it was –_

* * *

"Oof!" shouted the second bad guy, just as the first looked shocked and then dropped to pavement, his gun neatly intercepted by Stone.

"Hiya Faithy," said Xander with his lopsided grin, "need a hand?"

"Nah, I had it. But thanks anyway." I smiled at him, but I was surprised to see him. I kinda had the impression he didn't really like me much, sorta has good reason.

Stone got out his cell phone and punched a button. "Hey Dino," he said, "got a little problem here."

He listened a moment then said, "Yeah, hey you remember Al 'Bats' Cicciolino? Yeah, the one we put away two years before I left the force. Well, he's out now, and appears he's a little pissed-off at me, and probably you too. Anyway, send some uniforms over and you can put him back for '_felon with an unlicensed gun_', '_parolee associating with felons_', '_assault with a deadly weapon_', '_discharging a firearm within city limits_', and whatever else you can come up with."

He listened another minute then said, "Yeah, looks like he's stepped up from bats. See ya in a few."

"So these guys were after you? Not me? Not random?"

"Yeah," said Stone, "there are some people that no matter how often you teach them, they just never learn. But he did seem to think that you're Holly Barker, who you met the other day at Elaine's."

"Ah, so she's CIA, no wonder she doesn't like to advertise it."

"Yeah, I'll have to talk to her about it, because there's a small chance that this little mugging was aimed more at her them me."

"Okay, still nothin' to do with me, good." I glared at the muggers then said, "Where's my fuckin' manners? Stone, this is my friend Xander Harris, and X-man, this is Stone Barrington, my criminal lawyer."

"Criminal lawyer? What the hell Faith, whadja do this time? Rob a bank?" Xander asked.

"Nah, I don't need to rob banks, I inherited a pile from my Aunt. Then my cousin got himself killed in my new house right after he publicly accused me of stealing his inheritance. But Stone here has kept me out of the lockup, so far anyway. Now we're tryin' to find out who killed Roger. Wanna help?"

"Sure, but I don't know how much time I'll have, Giles sent me along to help you ride herd on your charges."

"Really? Cool. You want to come with us for a little B & E?"

Xander and I hadn't spent a lot of time workin' through our checkered past – after all, I almost fucking killed him and he doesn't try to bust my balls about it. What could I do to top that? Still, the reason we hadn't spent much time together since he got back from Africa was because I used to spend all my free time fucking that fuckin' Robin. Well at least that's changed now.

"Breaking and entering? What for?" asked Xander.

"Trying to keep me out of fuckin' prison again."

"Isn't B&E the opposite of what you should be doing to stay out of prison?"

Stone said, "Actually, I have the key to Mr. Wilkerson's apartment. Since his legal work was handled by Woodman & Weld, as well as anything else he could foist off on his lawyers, this is legal; the police would look askance if they catch us, but they couldn't do anything but bitch about it."

"Okay," said Xander, "legal crime, that's a new one."

A couple of cop cars arrived, followed by an chauffeured unmarked cop car carrying Dino Barchetti and Holly Barker in the back.

Dino and Holly got out, Dino conferred with Stone while Holly said to me, "You took out a couple of them?"

"I took down four and was about to shoot the other two when my friend Xander showed up, he and Stone managed to wrap them up."

Holly raised her eyebrows. "That's pretty good, where'd you learn how to do that?"

"I've been practicing Krav Maga since I was fourteen, and when I'm not doing other things for my employer, I teach unarmed combat to cops in Ohio at various Police Academy's."

"Very nice." As she got in the car, she looked at me speculatively, like maybe she was cooking up a plan concerning me. I'd have to fucking stop that, I wanted nothing to do with the CIA.

After the cops left with our muggers, we strolled towards Cousin Roger's apartment.

"What are we looking for, anyway?" asked Xander.

"Beats the fuck outta me. It's my lawyer's idea."

"Okay Mr. Lawyer, what are we looking for?"

"Anything to give us a reason for Mr. Wilkerson's demise, or even just a direction to investigate," said Stone.

"But shouldn't we be looking at that cop who actually shot him?" I asked.

"First, it's _allegedly_ shot him, we don't actually know if he did it, it's just a suspicion, although a strong suspicion. And second, breaking into a_ cop's_ house isn't a very bright idea."

Xander said, "But we don't have to do it ourselves, we've got specialists for that sort of thing."

"The hell you say!" said Barrington. "What are you, organized crime?"

"No, no, we wear white hats. It's all for a good cause."

"Anyway, Giles wouldn't authorize a break-in short of preventing an apocalypse, would he?" I asked.

"He might, he thinks highly of you, Faith. But he'd rather not, so first let's see what we can find legally."

Giles thinks highly of me? When did _that_ happen, I wondered. Nah, Xander must be wrong, he must of misheard something.

So, Roger's apartment consisted of four floors of a a well-maintained classic brownstone on a nice block. I could spend pages describing the place, and more pages describing where and how we looked, but there's no point because we didn't find shit. As far as we could tell, Roger spent his days watching porn on a 64" flat screen, or playing games on the most incredible computer-gaming setup Xander or I had ever seen, and his nights gambling away his allowance and clubbing. What a waste of space was cousin Rog.

"You know," said Stone, his arms outstretched to take in the whole apartment, "all this is probably yours now. I doubt that Roger bothered to draw up a will, so his possessions will revert to his mother's estate, which means it all goes to you. Although I'll have to double check to make certain. Hold on a moment, let me make a call."

While Stone called Bill Eggers, Xand and I flipped through Roger's DVD collection. It mostly didn't interest either of us, although there were a lot of musicals that some of the slayers might like, and a few old movies Xander thought might be worth watching.

Stone came out of the bedroom and said, "He did leave a will, a short one that he intended to add to but never did. After a couple of small bequests, most of his assets, such as they are, go back to his mother's estate, which means this apartment is now yours, along with the Cape Cod house, his trust fund and his Boston bank accounts."

"Just what I needed, more property." I was trying to get my head around this concept – back when I was a runaway sleeping in a park no one gave me shit and I had to scrounge in dumpsters to find enough to eat, now that I don't have a need for any help at all, more piles of stuff and more real estate comes my way. What's the sense in that? The universe has a weird sense of humor.

"Lucky you," said Xander, "I hope you enjoy the stacks of gay porn."

I said, "Oh just fuck me with a baseball bat." That got me two very odd looks from the men.

"You know Faith," said Xander, "inheriting all this is a great motive for offing Roger."

"Oh fuck, just what I needed. How soon will this shit get out to the investigators in charge of the case?"

"Hard to say, but sooner or later they _will_ find out," said Stone. "On the other hand, we can put forward a good case that you didn't know about any of this, which is true – right?" He looked right at me, I nodded agreement.

He continued, "And we'll also point out that you didn't need any of his assets, your own being so much greater."

"Plus I already have a job with good salary, good benefits, and good friends. This whole thing started out as something cool and has turned into a nightmare."

"Nightmare? Really? Is that what you think of inheriting twenty million or so?"

"Hey, any possibility at all that includes me going back to prison for a crime I didn't commit is a nightmare."

"Yeah, but see, you've got something now that you didn't have before. You have assets, large assets. And what that gets you is the ability to hire people, people like me, to help you out."

"Yeah, I'm still getting used to that part. So, what the fuck's next?"

"For your next step, I think you need to sit down in your new house, and start reading anything you can find in your Aunt's desk, or anywhere else she might have stashed paperwork."

I sighed deeply. "Research, my fuckin' fav. Xand, you're gonna help."

* * *

It was about ten at night when Barrington drove off in his Mercedes, me and Xand got on the Fat Boy – I loaned my helmet to him – and we drove out to the house.

Casual conversation wasn't really possible on a motorcycle, of course, but I could feel X's surprise when I waved at my security guard as we breezed through the gates to my place an hour and a half later. I had made very good time on the empty roads, and we didn't spot any cops, and more to the point, no cops spotted us as I broke the speed limit by a large amount.

We pulled up to the front door and Xander stared open-mouthed at my well-lit house. "Holy hopalong batman, this is incredible!"

"Batman?"

"Sure, you're a wealthy heiress by day and hunter of dark underworld creatures by night, I'm gonna get you a cape and a spandex suit for your birthday and start calling you bat – urk!"

"Not batman," I said as I hit him in the shoulder, gently. "Try again."

"Batwoman?"

"Ehhh."

"BatSlayer?"

"A tiny bit better."

"Okay, I can see the writing on the wall: Faith the Vampire Slayer. No originality here, no ma'am."

"See, you didn't have to think too hard to get it. Now come on in, it's time for a midnight snack and I've got this great cook."

"You didn't import Andrew, did you?"

"What? No, why the fuck would I do that? Although he does make dynamite brownies. Still, my new chef, Jack or Jock Jhahhhh-ock, or some shit like that, I bet he can do brownies, too. I'm trying to learn how to pronounce his name right before he quits, 'cause his cooking is to kill for."

We walked in the front door, Xander looked at the Hummel figurines in the large glass display case just inside the door and said, "Geez, it looks like an old lady lives here."

"Yeah, Aunt Helen wasn't that old, but her taste was at least a century out of date. I'm definitely gonna put most of this stuff in storage and redecorate, if I ever find the time."

"You don't know shit about being wealthy, Faithy. _You_ don't redecorate, you hire _other_ people to redecorate for you."

"Oh, yeah, that's a fuckin' good idea." He was right of course, it's gonna be a while before I get used to being loaded, if ever.

We wandered into the library and Xander took a close look at the paneled walls. "Damn fine woodwork in here," he said. "This is hand-planed, solid cherry raised panels, look at the detailing!"

I grinned. "Yeah and look at some of these books."

"What for?" he asked, puzzled, "they're just books, aren't they?"

"Just check out some of the titles back in that corner bookcase."

Xander went where I indicated and tilted his head sideways to read titles. After a minute he straightened up with a strange expression and looked at me. "Crapadoodle! This looks like a Watcher's library! What was your aunt into?"

"Fuck if I know, but do you know what she died of?"

"No, what?"

"Officially it was a serving fork accident and exsanguination, but they're treating it as a murder because no one could find a fucking fork anywhere near her body."

"A vampire got her? Here? On Long Island? Near some of the most expensive real estate in the states?"

"Yeah, vamp attack seems a pretty good bet."

"What about your cousin? Did a bloodsucker get him too?"

"Roger? Nah, he took two 9 mils to the chest."

"I've known a few vamps who used guns. And one of them was four centuries old, although she was an incredibly bad shot."

"Yeah, but they'd usually followed it up by suckage, didn't happen this time."

"Hmmmm."

"I think one of poor Roger's bad choices caught up to him, gambling debts or something like that."

"If you owe the mob, they don't kill you – it being hard to make a corpse pay an illegal debt – instead they find some way of forcing you to cough up money, goods or services – remember the _Sopranos_ episode about the unlucky gambler with the hardware store?"

"Huh, you're right of course. I even knew that, just didn't think about it. Anyway, we need to get Giles to look this stuff over. But for now, follow me, I want to show you something wicked cool."

I went up the main stairs and down the hall, opened a narrow door which exposed a cramped stairway that wound around what I supposed was the vent and fireplace stack, and finally opened a heavily weather-proofed door that allowed access to the rooftop walk. Xander looked around, the walkway started narrow, but opened up to an area big enough for lawn chairs. The moonlight over the ocean was entrancing. I stood right in the middle and started stretching.

"An actual Widow's Walk. This _is_ very cool," said Xander.

He looked around, staring at the dark horizon, the moonlight reflecting off the water, for a minute, then he couldn't help but look at the roof, how it was constructed I suppose. Honestly, I was a little put out, here I was stretching, bending, looking damn good if I do say so myself, and he was studying the roof tiles by moonlight? But his attention snapped to me when I bent my right leg backwards and touched my toes to the back of my head.

"Damn flexible there," he said.

I looked at Xand out of the corner of my eyes. _Now_ he was thinking about sex, I can always tell. Course it's been awhile, years, and just because he _said_ he forgave me, maybe he still resents my actions. If the situation was reversed, would I have forgiven him? I don't know, but it wouldn't be easy, and I have been known to carry a grudge.

"Ya know Faith, when you spread your legs that far, with your foot touching your head like that, I think that's stretching a good thing too far."

I laughed. "But it feels _so_ good."

Xander tore his eyes away from me and looked out over the ocean again. After a minute he said, "We could spend quite a lot of time up here, couldn't we?"

"Yeah. When our Slayers get here we may have to set some rules for this, 'cuz I'm gonna want some alone time up here, time when the girls won't be able to bug me."

"Oh, do you want me to head down?"

"What? No, you're welcome here anytime."

"Ah, I see," said the man who see's everything. Was my lame attempt at subtext getting through?

* * *

I showed Xander to a guest bedroom – being confused of what I wanted to do about me and Xand – and went back to reading Aunt Helen's letters. Among other things I found a copy of a title to six acres of of land near Boston which was owned by my mother – _that_ was very odd. A little more digging and I found a copy of a bill of sale, that plot of land, but only three acres of it, was now owned by Boston's Metropolitan Transit Authority. A quick look a Google maps and it looked to me like that land was near the Logan Airport terminal of Boston's Big Dig – it might have been worth millions, or at least a few hundred thousand. So why did mom die dead fucking broke? And where the hell did she get it in the first place? I _know_ she couldn't have paid any money for it. A little more digging, and I found copies of a transfer of ownership to, of all people, Aunt Florence. The fuck?

The next morning, after breakfast, I asked X to go down to the library and catalog the supernatural books. He naturally moaned and groaned, but went ahead. We both knew we'd need to send a list of the books to Giles just so we could understand what Aunt Helen was thinking about, besides, it might be helpful if there were any books here that Giles didn't have.

I sat down down in her, no – _my – _study and looked for anything interesting. But first I called Bill Eggers and asked him to research that plot of land in Boston – there was something about it – all of it – that didn't make any sense.

So next I started going through Helen's letters – it looks like she kept everything – and I found some from fucking Quentin Travers at the Council. I stared out the window, watching seagulls soar and dive, in a state of shock.

Finally, putting the letters down, I went downstairs, sat in the library, and watched while Xand check out the books. I said, "I found some letters from that fuckface Travers."

"What do they say?"

"I haven't looked yet."

"Why not?"

"I'm a little, uh, worried about what might have been going on."

"Umm, you'll worry yourself into a frazzle until you look."

"If Aunt Helen was a Watcher, why wouldn't Giles have mentioned it to me?"

"I don't know, maybe she wasn't, maybe he doesn't know, or maybe she was just a busybody, pushing her way into a world she didn't understand." said Xander.

"Yeah, could go either way. I'll read those letters later."

By mid-morning we were both tired of books, so Xander and I rode the Fat Boy into town. We needed some fresh air. Actually, I needed to get out of the house, it was starting to give me the wiggins. I got this mental image of me wandering through the place, old, wrinkled, in a frumpy housecoat with my hair in curlers and a pack of yappy little dogs at my feet, drinking tea and dusting my Hummel figurines. Just fucking shoot me now. So it turned out Xander didn't need much of a push to go for a ride either.

We explored around the neighborhood for a while – there was a surprising amount of raw nature on and around my land – then turned into town. I needed to buy some shit anyway. I parked near Murallo's grocery and we walked – there was some kind of shindig going on, tourists were everywhere.

I saw a familiar figure standing on the sidewalk. "Hello Chief Johnson," I said politely to the man who had arrested me a couple of days ago.

"Ms Lehane," he replied, his face mostly unreadable to me. "You haven't come across any more recently murdered corpses, have you?"

"Oh no, that's pretty unusual..."

"You know how many murders there have been in my jurisdiction in the last five years?"

"Uh, no."

"Three."

"Really? Just three until recently?"

"No Ms Lehane, three _including_ your aunt, your cousin and your gate guard."

"Ah," I said, not knowing what else to say.

"Hi," said Xander, holding out his hand, "My name is Xander Harris, I don't believe we've met."

"Mr. Harris," the Chief said, shaking hands. "I've run across your name recently, too."

"Nothing bad, I hope."

"On a list of known associates of Faith Lehane."

"That's kind of a odd way of putting it, don't you think? We're friends as well as colleagues, is it against the law for friends to hang out?"

"Perhaps not, but I don't want any more murders in this town, is that clear?"

"As crystal. I should point out that neither of us are responsible for your recent rise in your crime statistics."

"So you say."

"Yes, we say," said Xander, "and our lawyers say, as well as our friends and our bosses."

"Okay then, see that you keep it that way." He looked at us sternly, nodded, and went on his way. Since finding out I was a local landowner, taxpayer, and possibly a voter, his attitude had been adjusted a little, but he _really_ didn't like the extra work my family was bringing his way.

"Fuck me Xander, I move into a new house, a new neighborhood, a new state even, and it wasn't even a day before the fucking chief of police started eyeing me suspiciously. What did I do to deserve this? I mean really, what did I do? I thought I was one of the good guys! Trying, anyway."

A young woman walked up to us, a little younger than me, a couple of inches shorter than me, dark hair like mine, with a funny crooked smile. "Uh hi, uh Faith Lehane?"

"Yes, do I know you?" I asked, I could tell she wasn't a slayer.

"You should, big sis."

I felt stunned and confused. She leaned in close, I thought she was gonna say something private, but then I felt a blade near my stomach. I twisted sideways, too slow to avoid it completely, and the knife slid under my skin, scraping along my ribs. She turned and left, slipping through the crowds, gone seconds later. I turned to Xand, holding the knife in my hands, my blood dripping all over the fucking place.

"Xander!" He looked at my hand holding the knife, horrified.

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

**Faith, Hope & Charity**

_A Faith Lehane Mystery_

by

STFarnham

AKA Freelancer47

**Chapter Nine**

"Faith! What happened? Who was that? A demon? Why didn't you stop her?"

"She said she was my sister, I didn't expect her to stab me." My blood dripped.

"All you alright? How deep is the wound?" He was starting to sound a little frantic. I withdrew the knife.

"Wait, you shouldn't do that!"

"Stop worrying, it's just a flesh wound, didn't even go past my ribs. I've had worse, remember that K'tah demon last year?"

"You were a month recovering from that one."

"No way was it a whole month, three and a half weeks, max; this is nothin' compared to that. But I do need some bandages 'cuz my blood is getting all over everything and making a mess."

"Faith, even slayers can die from getting stabbed in the stomach! Why did you let her do that to you? Why didn't you defend yourself?"

I held the wound closed with my left hand, the bleeding was already slowing. I could tell from past experience this really would heal up in a couple of days. But in the meantime it was a little gory, and people around us were starting to stop and stare.

"She said she was my sister, and fuck me if I didn't believe her."

"Faith! Hold on, I'll call an ambulance!" said Xander, very nearly in panic mode.

"Hold on there Xan-man, it's just a scratch, a little bloody, but it's already healing – I'm a fucking slayer, don't panic. Give me your jean jacket to hide this and we'll go back to my bike. I've gotta first aid kit, that's all I need."

Xander slowed down, stopped panicking finally, and said, "My jacket? I bought this in Italy..."

"And you don't wanna get my blood on it, I understand," I sighed.

He stripped his jacket off and gave it to me, I bunched it up held it on the wound. "I'll get the blood out for you, don't worry," I said.

"Shit Faith, I don't give a damn about the jacket – I was just, you know, not thinking straight – just don't bleed out."

We started walking back to the bike, slowly, only a half-block away. The people around us, not seeing my blood any more, decided it couldn't have been all that serious after all and wandered away to enjoy their weekend.

"Keep an eye out for that crazy girl," I said, "she might try again."

"Okay. Uh, I don't remember you mentioning any sister before. Unless my memory is shot."

"No, no, your memory is fine, they've been out of my life for years and I just haven't wanted to talk about them."

"Them?"

"Yeah." I told him about Hope and Charity and how Hope died of SIDS, and then Charity disappeared into the foster care system.

"So that must have been Charity Lehane?"

"I guess, if she wasn't a fuckin' imposter."

"And you were, what, two years old when Hope died? You remember that?"

"Well, no, of course not. Mom told me about it later."

"So really, that could have been either one, your mom being so economical with the truth."

"Huh, you're right of course, I don't actually have any proof about Hope being dead."

"I'll call Willow and get her to research it."

"Do you have to? I don't like spreading this around."

"Yeah, I think we have to, what with murderous girls popping out of the woodwork to use you as a pincushion. Suppose she decides to use you for a little target practice next time? With say, a thirty-aught-six?"

I didn't like it, but I could see his point. We got to the bike and I pulled out my first aid kit from under the seat. Xander's eyes got big when the kit turned out to be bigger than the seat. "A Willow special hiding place," I told him.

"Ahh," he nodded in understanding. He opened the box and lifted my shirt, cleaned the wound, sprayed some antibacterial shit and bandaged it. It felt better not to be bleeding all over the fucking place. Now what the fuck was I going to do about my sister? Because I was convinced that was Charity, but why the fuck did she stab me? What did I ever do to her?

"I was six fucking years old the last time I saw Charity," I said to Xander, "what the fuck happened to her in the last eighteen years to make her hate me like that?"

Xander just shook his head.

* * *

We got back to my house an hour later. Xander had never driven a motorcycle in his life, so wounded or not, I had to; naturally the trip took longer than usual. I told Xander to go ahead and wrap his arms around my waist – I mean slayer here, I could take the pain in stride. But he just held on to my shoulders. I took the scenic route, sticking to the less busy of the two roads leading out of town towards my place. It wasn't long before I was waving at Ernie again as we cruised through the gates and turned the corner to my house.

I pulled up at the front door, parking carefully, setting my feet gingerly on the ground. "Hey Xand, would you kick the stand down?"

He did, it was a relief to let the bike go and stand. I started to wobble a little, and Xander caught me, although it wasn't too bad.

"I guess I need to learn how to drive a motorcycle if I'm gonna stick around here, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so." I think we both shied away from the implications of that statement, cause we didn't say anything more and went into the house, he helped me upstairs to my rooms.

"I'll clean up, change, and be down a a few minutes," I said.

"You sure? You sure you don't need a doctor?"

"Yeah, I'm sure, it's just a little blood loss, but maybe I need some stitches – you can do that, right? Then lunch'll fix me right up."

"Okay," he replied doubtfully, but why not get a doctor?"

" 'Cuz the doc'll wanna come back and take them out, and I'd have ta explain why I do two weeks of healing in two days."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot you haven't been here long enough to find a doctor who can keep their mouth shut, good reason. Sure, I stitched up entirely too many slayers, as well a myself, while I was in Africa."

"Thought so. You'll probably need the first aid kit from my Harley."

"You think I can get into Willow's magical space?"

"You really think Willow would keep you out?"

"I suppose not."

He came back a few minutes later and found me lying down on my side, wounded side up, with my shirt off, the bandages off, and my pants scritched down a couple of inches.

He looked at me, all of me, for a few moments before concentrating on the cut.

"Hmm, okay, this should be a snap. You want some anesthetic?"

"Not unless you're purposely clumsy."

"Okay, let me spread some of this antibacterial stuff in the wound and I'll get started."

He was really quite gentle, apparently he really did have plenty of practice patching up wounded slayers. He tried not to allow himself to be distracted by my display of skin, but I could see he was stirring a little below his waist. It only took about ten minutes to finish the stitches, then he cleaned and bandaged the wound again.

He turn around when I got up to find some clean clothes. "I'm ready for lunch now," I said to his back.

"Then I'll go down and warn Jacques." So either he couldn't wait to get out of my sight, or he didn't want to show me how much I had turned him on, which was it?

And shit, how come he didn't have any trouble pronouncing my chef's name?

* * *

After I changed clothes I followed down to the kitchen and joined him at the oak table. Jacques set down soup bowls and plates. He said with a flourish, "_Gratin de Poireaux_, watercress and bacon sandwiches, and fresh squeezed vegetable juice." At our puzzled expressions he added, "Gratinee of leeks and ham." We were still baffled. "A Gratin is a sauced dished that is broiled, thus forming a _gratin_ on top."

Both Xander and I must have made faces.

"Before you reject it, please, taste it."

"Okay," I said with a long-suffering sigh. We cautiously tasted the whatever it was and – tasted it again. "Hey, that's pretty fuckin' amazing."

Xander took a bite of his sandwich. "Umm, the bacon's damn good, maybe the best bacon I ever ate, but I'm not ever gonna be a big fan of watercress, sorry man."

Me neither, but we did eat it all. I was still hungry, so I said, "Um, that was good, you have any more?"

"Me too," agreed Xander.

"Seconds coming right up."

Man, it's so cool to have my own personal chef. But I couldn't help but wonder, is this really me? Would I be able to fight to my limits after waddling into battle, stuffed with leeks and ham in cream sauce?

* * *

After lunch Stone called. "What's happenin' Stone?"

"Are you gonna be there in two hours?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Wait for me, I've got something."

He hung up, so Xander and I hung around. I went to study my aunt's papers some more and Xand went to sleep for awhile.

In the back of the center drawer of her desk I saw a packet wrapped with a red ribbon. Curious, I pulled it out and looked inside. There were a bunch of letters, when I saw the address, I nearly fainted. Well, not really, but if I hadn't been a slayer I might've nearly fainted, or maybe not, maybe I would just think about it. Anyway, there were a dozen or so letters all addressed to me, and all stamped, 'RETURN TO SENDER' with various notes scribbled on it like: _'no such addressee at this address'_ or _'left no forwarding address'_. Some of them had been forwarded a couple of times before the Post Office gave up. Huh, makes sense I guess, for a number of years I was pretty hard to find. And it's not like I was scrupulous about keeping anyone up-to-date with my address – especially after I landed in prison.

Since the letters were addressed to me, I read them, starting with the earliest one.

After I finished reading my Aunt's letter's, I felt like crying, not that I ever would, but the feeling was there. Helen had spent years trying to find me, she _wanted_ me to come live with her. I mean I had recently figured out that she would have taken me in if I had shown up on her doorstep like a bedraggled kitten, but now I knew for sure that she had really wanted me. I could've skipped a couple of years of living on the streets of Boston; on the other hand, it's possible that experience strengthened me, made me harder inside. Was that good or bad? Fuck if I know. If I had moved here at twelve I might never have crossed paths with Kakistos, and my first Watcher would still be alive and I never would've gone to Sunnydale and I never would've gone to work for fucking Mayor Wilkins and the whole world would be a different place today. Hell, one of the rich young men I had seen strutting around Sag Harbor might have made me a young unmarried mother and then where would I be? Or _had_ been or somethin'. I stared out the window at the ocean, the seagulls were soaring and swooping again, maybe they never stopped.

My secretary knocked on my door frame and said, "Mr. Barrington is here, waiting in the library with Mr. Harris."

"Thanks," I replied. My secretary had to double as my butler. I wondered how many of my neighbors would think: 'Poor girl doesn't even have a butler, how will she ever survive?' I'm not at all sure if I want to meet my neighbors.

I went down to the library. "Hey Stone, so what's the what?"

He said, "I looked into Mr. Wilkerson's will with a little more detail. He left a bequest of twenty-five thousand dollars, to, and you're gonna love this, Randolph Reardon, of your local police. But he also left a sizable amount to the American Cancer Society, more than a hundred thousand dollars."

Well shit, I was about to make a crack about him being the world's best cock-sucker, but now... "Huh, cancer research? So there was more to my cousin than met the eye. Still, we need to find out what he and Randy had going."

Stone said, "It certainly bears investigating."

"How?"

"Let's go ask him."

* * *

We found our way to Officer Randy's house, a small affair tucked into a cheaper part of Sag Harbor. I was astonished to discover that there was such a neighborhood on this part of Long Island, but I guess you have to have a place for public servants to live. And after all, poor is relative – it wasn't exactly a ghetto.

I knocked on the door and – surprise! – my alleged sister answered. "Whoa! I get to kill two birds with one stone, where's your knife?" I said with broad grin. She looked horrified and tried to slam the door, but it ran into my foot. "Hi lil sis, aren't you going to invite me in?"

From the next room I heard Officer Randy yell, "Who is it, hun?"

Ah hah! I shoved the door open and invited myself in, Stone and Xander followed. Randy came out of the kitchen. "Wait, you can't come in here!"

Stone asked, "Who is this?"

"This," I said with my hand holding on to her arm while she struggled ineffectively to get away, "is supposedly my sister Charity. But she tried to stab me in the stomach this morning, it's a good thing I'm so hard to kill."

Stone said, "And how long had it been since you last saw her?"

"Eighteen years, I was six years old when CPS took her away."

"Yeah," said 'Charity', "and you stole my life! You lived the good life while I had to take the dregs!"

My jaw dropped, I stared at her, amazed and dismayed. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You, you lived with mom all these years, she loved you and you stole her money so she died broke!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I sounded like a broken record, but I didn't know what else to say, except, "Where are you getting this bullshit?"

"It's not bullshit! It's true, TRUE, **TRUE**!" Charity shouted, nearly losing it.

"You know," said Stone, "when people lose control of their emotions over an argument, it's often because they know, deep down, that their facts are wrong. You compensate being wrong with getting highly emotional."

"NO! NO! It can't be! Faith stole everything from me!"

"Faith," said Stone quietly, "see if you can calm her down." I took her over to her couch. I sat next to her and we just sat there and watched everyone else argue.

Patrolman Randy repeated himself, "You people shouldn't be here."

"And why not officer?" said Stone, "Don't you want to explain your relationship with this woman, the alleged Charity Lehane? I advise you to obtain legal counsel, however, as you may be entering rough waters."

"I don't need any legal assholes! I watch you guys get rich buttheads off, you're just a bunch of bloodsuckers! Charity an' I are lovers, you can't stop that."

"Okay, that's a good start. When did you first realize that she murdered Roger Wilkerson?"

"What the fuck! She didn't! Faith did! I saw her standing over the body!"

"But the GSR tests show otherwise."

"She musta been wearing gloves!"

"Possible, but even with gloves blowback deposits will end up on shirts, even the face. It's very hard to prevent gunshot residue from appearing somewhere, not just on hands. And Ms Lehane had no trace of residue on her. But _you_ did."

"But, but... You know what? That's my business! Now get the fuck outta here!"

I turned to Charity and said, as gently as I could, "Charity, our mother was a drug addict. Any money she got, she used to buy drugs. As time went on, it just got worse. This land she had in Boston is a surprise to me, but I have my lawyers working on tracing it."

"NO! That can't be, that's not what I was told!"

"By who?" I asked.

"None of your business!"

"I ran away from home when I was not quite thirteen because mom was planning to pimp me out..."

"NO NO NO! That can't be! She was an angel and you were a whore!"

"Charity, you've been had. Someone's been feeding you bullshit and you've swallowed it, hook, line, and sinker. I've been on my own since I was twelve, because I had to get away from mom in order to protect myself from her."

I can't imagine that I was that persuasive to her, she was so stuck in her wrong-headed beliefs, but it looked to me like she wanted to believe me. If so, it had to be because she had doubts herself, which wouldn't be surprising since her version of the facts was so at odds with reality. How could she not have doubts?

"Charity, who's been feeding you this garbage?"

"I can't tell you, I can't go back on my word."

"Charity, we're sisters, we can talk about it."

"Sisters, right. You abandoned me eighteen years ago!"

"I was six years old! It wasn't by _my_ choice!"

Stone had wandered over. He said, "If you gave your word to a series of lies, you have no legal responsibility to honor it. The law is very clear."

That sounded like bullshit to me, I doubted there was any law on the subject – but lawyers are bound to be good at bullshitting non-lawyers on the finer points of the law. Then again, what the fuck do I know?

"Charity, come by the house any time, you'll be welcome, and I'm on your side." She looked at me, I couldn't tell what she really thought of me, but there was a faint look of longing. I hoped I was getting through.

Randy started frothing at the mouth again. "Everybody out! I know my rights, get the hell out!"

"Okay, sure," said Stone heading towards the door. He turned around and said, "Just one thing, do you know why Roger left you twenty-five thousand dollars in his will?"

Roger looked like someone hit him over the head with a 2x6. "What? He did that?"

"Yes."

"Well I'll be damned, he kept his word."

"What word is that?

"None of your business, and nothing to do with any of this, now get the fuck out!"

We left, I couldn't see anything else to do, unless I wanted to get medieval on their asses, which I surely wanted, but chose not to.

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

**Faith, Hope & Charity**

_A Faith Lehane Mystery_

by

STFarnham

AKA Lancer47

**Chapter Ten**

* * *

Xander, Stone and me stood on the sidewalk outside of Charity and Randy's modest bungalow and had a little war conference.

"So whattaya think? Is Charity a killer and is Randy covering for her? Or were they just in the wrong place at the wrong time?" I asked.

Xander said, "I don't trust either one, but I didn't get killer vibes. On the other hand, I've been fooled before."

Stone said, "I don't think either one is entirely innocent, but I also think they're pawns in someone else's game. I agree they don't seem like killers, but you're right, you can rarely tell for sure just by looking and talking to the suspects."

"So what now, Stone?"

"Now we do more research."

Xander groaned, and so did I.

"I take it research isn't your guys favorite activity."

"You'd be right."

Xander said, "I'll see if Willow found anything about Hope."

Stone raised his eyebrows, "Who's Willow?"

"A friend of ours back at the London headquarters," I said. "She's looking into my family."

"Okay. What's this about land in Boston?"

"Oh yeah," I said, "I found that mom had actually owned something, a six acre plot near Logan airport. It looks like it's part of the Metro now, land that got consumed by the Big fucking Dig. But its origin is a complete mystery to me, I certainly never heard of it before. Anyway, somehow or other, Aunt Florence ended up with it in between being owned by mom and the Metro. So I asked Bill Eggars to research it."

"Excellent, I'll call him."

Xander said, "Is it time for dinner yet? I'm really curious about what Jacques is going to serve us next."

I frowned at him. Was he being nice to me, even a little flirtatious, just to eat at my table? Then I thought, 'what the fuck Faithy, what am I thinking?' Man, I've been wealthy beyond anything I ever dreamed for two weeks, and I'm already getting suspicious of peoples motives. But really, Xander? Xander doesn't give a shit about money, never did, and I don't think he ever will, at least not much beyond what he needs to live on anyway.

My phone rang. "Hello?"

"Hi, this Evelyn, we're at the airport, you wanna come get us?"

"Who the fuck are you?"

"I can't say over the phone, you know that! Giles sent us."

"Ah, okay. How many of you?"

"Three: me and Davina who we call Dave, and the squirt, Rikki. And our luggage."

"Hmm, well sure as fuck you ain't gonna fit on my motorcycle, and my lawyer's car isn't much bigger. You can wait until I get back to the house and get a car, or take a taxi."

"I've got the address, we'll take a taxi."

"Okay, see you back at the house."

I looked at Xander, "Your charges are here. They sound like real headaches, I wish I'd never mentioned this idea to Giles."

"Aw, you don't mean that, just think of the fun you'll have with the girls and your sister!"

"Oh fuck me, I can't wait to see what _that's_ like."

"Just as long as they don't make Jacques want to quit."

"Oh crap, we'd better get back to the house. They're just coming from the Sag Harbor airport, they might get there before us. If the girls are anything like I was at that age they'll drive Jacques mad."

"Let's get going then, he's like a national treasure or something."

Stone said, "So when am I going to meet Jacques? Or anyone else who's been working there since before Helen's time."

"You suspect the butler?"

"You have a butler?"

"No, I meant that meta-, meta-for, what the fuckically," I said.

"Metaphorically."

"Yeah. Well sure, come on, follow us and I'll treat you to dinner."

"I'll meet you there."

As Stone drove off, Xander said, "You better call Jacques and tell him to expect us."

"Good idea."

* * *

I called Jacques and he seemed quite happy, very much up to the challenge of feeding six people on short notice. I did get the feeling that a little more warning would have been nice.

I got on the bike, Xander behind me, and off we went. I was still a little sore from the morning stabbing, but it seemed to be healing up nicely. When Xand put his arms around my waist I sort of clinched up and hissed softly. Not softly enough as he immediately pulled away. "Hey, don't worry, it was just momentary," I said, "grab on, you won't hurt me."

"Aw that's just your Slayer pride talking, if it hurts, it hurts, I'll just have to be careful and hang on to your shoulders again."

"It's better the other way."

"Really?" Was he reading more into that than I meant? Maybe I meant more than I thought? Maybe I liked him holding me close.

But what was I gonna do about X? I could ignore my feelings, I could tamp 'em down, I could keep it private. But I couldn't fool myself, my feelings for Xand were there. The only real question was whether or not Xander felt the same – that I couldn't tell. And my recent experience with Robin made me kinda untrusting. More untrusting than usual anyway.

* * *

We drove up to the house just in time to witness invaders at the front door. My poor secretary was facing three young slayers with a pile of luggage and was gamely trying to keep them out while Stone was just climbing out of his car and trying to preserve the peace. The girls looked like they were about to chop poor Stephanie into pieces – luckily they hadn't actually produced any weapons. I pulled up with a fancy sideways slide, facing the girls.

"Whoa, whoa, what's going on here?" I said as Xand and I got off the bike.

"Ms Lehane, these kids are trying to invade your house!"

"I'm so sorry Stephanie, I didn't mention them to you. It's all right, they're guests."

"Oh," she said, sounding disappointed that she couldn't continue to repel borders. "Then welcome, there are three rooms at the top of the stairs on the right."

"And girls," I said sternly, "this is Stephanie Heliopolis, she's in charge of the house so listen to her and do as she asks. And this is Alexander Harris, or Xander, and he's gonna be your house-mother, um, make that house-father. Anyway..."

"Oh stop it, we know Xander," said Rikki, the youngest. She looked just barely thirteen, a little young for a slayer, I thought, but there she was.

"Oh you do, okay, so I've been out of the loop. Do what he says, or you'll answer to me, got it?"

"Yes ma'am!" the little twerps said in chorus while they saluted me. It was adorable – I really hate adorable. I looked at Xand to see if he was smirking or anything, maybe he arranged this, but he seemed just as flummoxed as me. Stephanie was kind of slack jawed at the sudden transformation from little hooligans to little darlings.

"Okay girls, pick out your rooms, put away your stuff, freshen up, then come down to the library. Uh wait, how old are you? And which is which?"

"I'm Rikki, and I'm thirteen."

"Fourteen. Davina."

"Almost fifteen. I'm Evelyn."

Oh good grief. What the fuck did I do to deserve this? I was expecting them to be a little older, but then again I didn't specify when I talked to Giles. Come to think of it, he probably has more trouble placing the younger ones. Oh well, the nice thing about slayers is that I could hit them if I needed to, but I suppose not when anyone was around, it wouldn't look too good.

Xander said, "We'll have to get them enrolled in school."

"Oh good, that'll get 'em out of my hair for most of the day."

"That's what you think. Lunches, after school activities, bake sales, teacher conferences, report cards, principal conferences, homework supervision, disciplinary hearings – with mini-slayers that's pretty much a given, science fairs; the list doesn't stop Faithy. You're a soccer mom now."

"&^#&* !"

* * *

I hadn't been in the fucking dining room before and I hadn't realized that there was this huge walled garden at the end of the house. One whole wall of the dining room was retractable glass, and the design intent was with the glass wall open the garden and dining room seemed like one big room. This was not an original part of the house, obviously. The effect was _very_ luxurious.

Six of us didn't even fill up a third of the dining room table. Stone was quite charming to my young charges. Apparently women of all ages responded to him, anyway he told them jokes, mostly age-appropriate, told them stories, and appeared to listen attentively when they excitedly blathered on about their favorite music and clothes and all the stuff that passed me by when I was their age. Listening to them made me feel not just old, but fucking ancient. I wondered if I should tell them stories about living on the streets as a runaway – that would sure as shit be fucking instructive.

Jacques served us hamburgers with salad and french fries, only he called them _pommes frites_. Didn't make any difference what he called 'em, I didn't know fries could taste that fucking good. And the burgers were out of this world.

Jacques impressed me when he didn't blink at the requests for seconds and thirds. My young slayers ate like locusts and Jacques kept the food coming without complaint.

The conversation was flowing as well as the food, in the middle of slight pause, I said, "I should've invited Charity."

Well that was a conversation stopper. Four and a half pairs of eyes stared at me.

After a long, long silent pause, Xander said, "Uh, you do remember she tried to kill you, right?"

"Yeah, but someone's been feeding her a line, she needs – hell, I don't know what she needs – but I want to try to get to know her. She is my sister after all."

No one had anything to say after that except how good the desert was: some sort of custard with a crunchy top, something French, rich, and incredibly delicious.

* * *

After dinner I found Stephanie. "Do I have a chauffeur? 'Cuz if I do, I haven't seen him."

"Yes. He's due back from vacation tomorrow."

"And where do you live?"

"Over the garage, with Jacques. He's my husband."

"Ah, I see. I'm amazed you've remained so thin and fit while married to a man who can cook like that."

She laughed and said, "Oh I would be as big a hot-air balloon, but I exercise constantly."

"Who else lives on the estate?"

"There's a gardener and his wife. He takes care of the grounds and gardens and his wife occasionally helps out in the greenhouse, but she's not full time. I take care of supervising the maid service, and any other service we need to run the estate."

"Sort of like a butler."

"Yes, exactly."

"Okay. Is it going to bother you having the girls here? I know they can be a handful, but this is part of my job actually, with the ISWC in London."

"Really? Can you explain that?"

"No, it's kind of hard to explain." She wasn't satisfied with that answer, but I signed the paychecks so she didn't press me.

"I do worry about you having to take on more than you've signed up for. I never thought I needed a secretary, and yet I can already see I'd be lost without you."

"It's my job. And no, it's not onerous, in fact, since you don't have any of your aunt's social engagements, I actually have much less to do than I'm used to."

"Oh, sorry to disappoint."

"Not a disappointment, I feel certain social engagements will start springing up. After all, you are a very lovely young woman of good family..."

I snorted. "Good family, right, that's a good one. My mom was unmarried and died of a drug overdose. She had so many so-called boyfriends that she had no idea of who my father might have been – she couldn't even remember the names of most of the candidates. Her social life was indistinguishable from a prostitute's, so no, no way am I from a 'good' family."

"You can trace your lineage back to the fourth trip of the second Mayflower in the year 1634..."

"I thought we were Irish."

"That came later. You have multiple ancestors you know, we all do in fact."

"Second Mayflower?"

"Yes, in 1622 the first Mayflower was broken up and sold for lumber after the famous voyage to Plymouth. Then they built another ship with the same name, which made five successful voyages to New England, but disappeared on the last."

"So, anyway Ms. Lehane, you are considered to be from a fine old New England family, whether you wish to think of yourself that way or not. Your mother lost her way, but that doesn't mean you need to follow her footsteps."

"I hope not."

* * *

Stone finally got back to me with more details on mom's land. "So here's the thing," he said over the phone, "your mother left a will, she wrote it about three months before she died. In it, she left the three acre plot to your Aunt Florence."

"What the fuck! Why'd she do that?"

"So far I haven't found out. On the day she wrote the will, she opened a bank account with fifty thousand dollars in it."

"Huh? Where the fuck did she get that kinda money?"

"We haven't traced it yet. Anyway, she wrote one check on the account, to the Chappaquiddick Drug & Alcohol Rehabilitation Center, for five thousand dollars. I checked, at the time a full drug rehab program cost fifty thousand dollars, at five thousand dollars per week."

"Fuck, that's one expensive program."

"Yeah, it's a legitimate rehab center though, and they have an excellent rep. I think they cater mostly to wealthy politicians and movie stars. So your mother checked in. But at the end of the first week, she checked out. Later that day she withdrew five thousand in cash from the bank. The Rehab center never saw her again. She drained the bank account and was dead three months later."

"So your sayin' after a week of rehab she got high and stayed that way for three months then keeled over."

"Yeah, or something close to that. She may have been going up and down, she may have spent some on food, we don't know yet. Woodman and Weld hired a Massachusetts PI firm to look into it."

"So you're sayin' someone gave mom fifty grand all at once to use on rehab, but bein' a junkie, it didn't work out too well."

"Unless the plan worked all _too_ well."

"If the intention was to actually help her, you'd think they would've paid the rehab center directly."

"I'm bristling with suspicion over the whole thing."

"So Stone, can you tell me what happened to the other three acres?"

"It was seized for back taxes. You see, your mother inherited the land from your grandfather. She ignored it for years and since for most of that time it was worth very little, being mostly swamp primarily useful only for camping, duck hunting and raising mosquitoes, she didn't pay it any attention, in fact she probably completely forgot about it. But eventually the airport expanded and the Big Dig people wanted the land and suddenly it was worth something. The state took half for back taxes and eventually Metro bought the other half for one point six million dollars."

"From Florence."

"Yes."

"Your sayin' Aunt Florence gave my mother fifty thousand dollars in exchange for being named in her will."

"It looks that way, but we haven't traced the money yet."

"Florence killed my mother because she saw a way to make money off a druggie." The thought repeating, sort of a circular thought.

"Don't jump to conclusions, Faith, we don't know that for sure, not yet anyway."

"Did Helen know about it?"

"We know there was major disagreement between the two, and the timing fits."

"Yeah, that's all I need, I'm gonna fuckin' kill her."

"Faith, wait! You can't...!" I hung up on him.

* * *

TBC

_A/N: If you've read John Steinbeck's _The Winter of Our Discontent_, you will have recognized some of the major plot elements. Also, a few chapters ago, _Murallo's Grocery_ was a direct reference to the novel. I haven't figured out how to logically tie Ethan Hawley, or maybe his children, into this story, but I keep thinking about it._

_I should probably apologize for my snarky reference to Chappaquiddick and politicians, I couldn't help myself. _


	11. Chapter 11

**Faith, Hope & Charity**

_A Faith Lehane Mystery_

by

STFarnham

AKA Freelancer47

**Chapter Eleven**

So, was I really gonna go and murder my aunt to avenge my mother's death? Fuck yeah, but I didn't want to get caught this time. No fucking confessions, Aunt Florence could end up next to the mother-fucking pimp who probably ended up with the lion's share of the money anyway.

I was getting mixed up though. The pimp I took care of was much earlier, this would have to be a different pimp, if any. So I'd add another to the list of better off dead.

I dressed to go vamp hunting and stalked out my front door and threw my leg over the Fat Boy and fired her up. I cruised down the Long Island Expressway, trying to get into the zen zone so I could decide how to kill her. For some reason, the zone wasn't there, I couldn't center myself. I was full of nervous energy, all zooming around inside, making it impossible to relax, impossible to concentrate on my plan. Since I didn't _have_ a plan I guess that wasn't a surprise. I should have turned around right there, I should have stopped, but I wanted only one thing – to kill my mother's killer. _That_ I could concentrate on.

* * *

I drove up to Florence's building, but when I saw the doorman inside the brass and glass doors I immediately kept going. _Not a good idea Faithy_, I said to myself, what was I gonna do, sign in, make sure the cameras got my good side, and then go upstairs to commit murder? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Why was I having such a hard time with this? I knew what I wanted to do, and certainly wouldn't have any difficulty committing the deed, but one thing did bubble up over and over – don't fucking get caught! I did my time, I didn't need to do any more because this wasn't murder, this was just setting things straight, putting my universe back in order.

And when did I become such a staunch defender of my junkie mom? Okay, she wasn't much of a mom, but she was was the only one I had. If I hadn't run away from her my life would have been much worse; but I did run away, and even living on the streets my life did get better, so there's that. Except for the times things got worse, but I solved those times. I mean, with Buffy's help I did kill Kakistos in the end, and he certainly deserved to die. No one would think of locking me up for that, not even me. I suppose if the most staunch law and order guy wanted to charge me with something to do with Kakisto's death, it would be along the lines of hunting out of season, not really something that would cause much anguish.

I guess what really hurt was simple: if Florence had been sincere about helping mom, she could have have done some good, she could have ensured that mom did the rehab, and maybe it would have worked. Or maybe not, but she could have tried. That's what got to me.

Then there was that pimp mother-fucker I took care of after the fall of Sunnydale. I was out on one of my solo hunting trips, a venture across New England. It's funny how I remembered that guy – out of all the men that trooped in and out of my mother's bedroom, that one stuck in my mind. It must have been the way he hit her, or maybe it was the way he hit me. Anyway, his fucking face was burned permanently into my memory. So in between slaying vamps I tracked him down. I had planned carefully, I didn't just jump in and off the fucker; I followed him, learned his habits, learned his route. I figured the whole thing down to the gnat's ass – hey, I didn't read fucking poetry in prison, I listened to people and I learned. So anyway, after I confronted the pimp he managed to make me angry all over again, but I turned those tables and soon he was dead. I did it in the shadows, at around three in the morning, timed so I was near a large construction area of the fucking Big Dig, in between shifts. So it was easy to sneak the body in and bury him between huge concrete forms. The next day, shortly after dawn, they poured tons of concrete over his fucking grave. Now there was a killing I was proud of.

But this time I was going off without much thought. As I circled the block for the second time I noticed the doorman staring through the door at me. Shit, this wasn't gonna work. Instead of circling the block again, I turned towards Stone's place, which was only a few blocks south.

I parked and jumped off the bike, ran up the steps and pounded on his front door. After several long moments he opened up.

"So Faith, do I have to defend you for yet another murder?"

"No, not yet anyway."

"Good, come in."

"Did you call the cops on me?"

"No, but it was a close thing."

"Hmmm, yeah I can see that. If I found out about this even a couple of years ago, I don't think anything would have stopped me, and I'd now be cooling me heels in prison again. I guess this is what they call growing up, although it feels like shit to me."

"Look, your Aunt Florence is not going to get away with this, we'll file a complaint against her with the District Attorney, and we'll also file a civil suit against her. Although whether or not the DA brings charges is up to him – this won't be an easy win so they may pass on it. On the other hand, I wouldn't care to be the one to defend your aunt in court, so this could go either way."

"Hmmm," I said, "A lawsuit doesn't sound like it would be all that bad to her."

"Oh don't dismiss it like that, a lawsuit can mess up a person's life for many years to come. And I believe we may win. Anyway, it's better than killing."

I sat down on the couch, he sat next to me, I leaned against him. And we did nothing, we just sat there while time passed.

* * *

The next morning I was cruising back to my house when a bunch of cop cars suddenly surrounded me, forcing me to stop in the middle of the fucking expressway. They were extremely wary, pointing guns at me, shouting to put my hands up. It was clear I didn't have a choice in the matter. They handcuffed me and tossed me in back of a cruiser and took me back to a cop shop in the city. No one said a word to me.

I sat in the interrogation room, again, and stared at the cops across from me. I said, "I want my lawyer," and had been silent since. That's a magic phrase, they really do stop asking questions after that. But they watched me, I thought it was creepy.

So why was I here? I thought about everything I had done in the last month, and I just couldn't come up with anything that would warrant getting arrested. Unless, and this was a real possibility, they decided to charge me with assault on a police officer for disarming Randy the cop. But something told me that wasn't it.

Stone finally arrived. "We've gotta stop meeting like this."

"I know what you mean. The trouble is, this time I have no fucking idea why I'm here."

"They didn't tell you?"

"Nope."

"You've been charged with the murder of your Aunt Florence."

"What?! I didn't even see her, and I sure as hell didn't kill her!"

"Are you sure? You wouldn't lie to your lawyer, would you?"

"Of course not! I'm not an idiot."

"Okay, I'll go see what they have."

"Then I guess I'll get some sleep."

I woke up an hour later. An hour after that they decided to put me in a cell. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!

Eventually Stone and the detectives got back to me. Then they transferred me to Riker's Island. They didn't let me out for two weeks, so for those two weeks I'm getting one of those Third Person guys to tell this tale.

* * *

The three young slayers, Rikki, Davina and Evelyn were in the library, drinking hot chocolate, munching biscotti, and not talking much because of their glumness.

"So what are we supposed to do while Faith's in prison?" asked Rikki.

"I dunno, you suppose she's gonna get out or not? She says she's innocent."

"Yeah, yeah," said Evelyn, "they all say that, it's like a natural law or some shit like that."

"So you don't believe her?" asked Rikki.

Davina said, "You do? I mean, it's not like she hasn't done time for murder before."

Rikki said, "_I_ believe her."

"You got a bad case of hero worship, Rikki-tikki-tavi."

"Don't call me that!"

"Or what? You'll hit me? Like you could!"

Rikki leaped up, high up, and came down on Davina. They fell off the couch and wrestled, rolling around on the floor and destroying a coffee table. Evelyn pulled her feet up out of the way.

Xander walked in and said, "What the hell is going in here?!"

"Xand!" wailed Rikki, "she doesn't believe Faith!"

"Really? And you do?"

"Yes!"

"Hmmm. All three of you, ten laps around the fence – outside the fence. Maybe that'll cut down on your energy levels a little."

All three yelled, "WHAT?"

"Go on, out!" said Xander, "you need the workout."

"But it's almost midnight!" said Evelyn.

"So? You're Slayers, what does the time of the night matter to you?"

Grumbling, the three got up and headed outside.

At the end of the first lap Davina stopped. She said, "Hold up."

Rikki said, "But Xander said..."

"He's not here, he'll never know. I don't know about you two, but I think there's vampires that need to be slayed."

"Vampires?"

"Where?"

"In the graveyard, of course. Where else would they be?"

"Almost anywhere. Besides, where we gonna find a cemetery?"

"I googled it earlier today, about two miles as the crow flies, in that direction." She pointed inland.

Evelyn said, "Yeah, okay, I'm in. We'll run there and back, and it'll be about the same as running ten laps."

"I don't know," said Rikki, "are you sure about this?"

The other two grinned at her and grabbed her arms. "Of course we're sure! When have we ever led you astray?"

The three leaped smoothly across a drainage ditch and loped away into the night. Rikki said, "Have you two ever _not_ led me astray?"

"And have you ever not let us?"

Five minutes later they walked through the unlocked gates of the local graveyard, all three laughing nervously at some silly joke. "Look!" said Davina, "who, or what, is that?"

They saw a young woman sitting on a park bench, painting her fingernails by a streetlamp.

"That's kinda odd, don'cha think?"

"What, a young woman sitting on a park bench?"

"At midnight?"

"Yeah, let's go talk to her."

They walked over, noting that she was really quite beautiful, in a vacuous blonde sort of way.

"Hey," said Rikki, "who are you?"

"Well that's for me to know and you to find out," she answered, tossing her hair back and waving her hand around with the fingers spread out to dry her nail polish.

"That's why I asked, to find out."

Rikki was worried about something. She pulled Davina aside and said, "I think I feel a vampire, over that way." She pointed towards the shadows of the woods to the south.

The girl on the bench scoffed, "Vampire? What have you girls been smoking? Or have you just watched too many episodes of that stupid vampire show."

"Hey," said Rikki, "that's a great show!"

"No it isn't," said the blonde. "I mean vampires that sparkle in the sun? Really?"

"Yeah, well, it's just entertainment and sucks to you. You better get out of here, it's dangerous here tonight."

"Sure, I could say the same for you."

"No you can't because we're prepared and you're not!"

"What was that!" said the blonde, standing up and suddenly looking small and worried while she pointed towards the shadows.

Eve said, "Don't worry, stay behind us, we'll protect you, that's what we do."

"_You _will protect _me_? Protect me from what? If he's a rapist and murderer we'll be a regular smorgasbord for him."

"No, no, don't worry, we _will_ protect you. Stop worrying, we know what we're doing."

Two vampires had walked out into the open, spotted their prey, and stalked towards the girls.

"You just stand back out of the way and watch," Davina said with as much authority as she could muster, "we'll take care of this situation."

"Okay, I'll observe." The blonde suddenly became calm and collected, the three young slayers didn't notice; they were too busy concentrating on the vampires.

Two of them started trading punches with the two vamps when two more such creatures came out of the woods. Now all three girls were mixing it up, trying to stake the vampires. But they were not having much success because these were not newbie vamps. They all got thrown around, leaped when they could, got punched and tossed into gravestones. The blonde woman watched with hooded eyes.

Four _more_ vampires came out of the shadows, circling the blonde. Davina noticed. "GET OUT OF HERE!" she shouted urgently, desperation tinged her voice from her position on the ground, struggling to keep from getting bit by a large and incredibly ugly vampire.

The woman stood still, her headed cocked slightly as if listening carefully, her whole attitude attuned to the night. Suddenly, two vampires attacked her from each side. She snapped her hands and two stakes fell from her sleeves into her palms. She instantly reversed her grip on the stakes and thrust them out and sideways, and the two vamps on each side of her turned to dust, having no time for anything but looks of surprise.

She stepped sideways smartly and the other two vampires, who had planned to rush her from the front and back, smacked into each other right where she had been standing. As they backed up, her hands flashed out again, and two more vamps turned to dust and blew away into the night.

Davina and Rikki, from beneath their angry vampires, were shocked at how easily the stranger had dispatched four vampires in as many seconds, and both wished for that same ease of staking for themselves. All three of the young slayers were frantically pushing their attackers away from their throats, kicking out, punching, twisting, doing everything they could to keep from becoming vamp food. The unknown woman unhurriedly walked over, casually threw two stakes into the backs of two vamps, which promptly dusted; Rikki and Davina both inhaled at the wrong time and started coughing. Evelyn's vamp was suddenly lifted from her, and tossed thirty feet onto a tree, a branch of which pierced the vamp's chest and he slowly dusted. The last one started running, really churning up the turf in his haste to escape. But it did him no good, the blonde flicked her wrist and another stake seared through the air, unerringly hitting the vampire's back and piercing his shriveled black heart.

"So," said the woman, turning back to the young ones, " I'm still alive and kicking and I didn't even break a nail, so I guess you guys did a pretty good job of protecting me after all."

The three younger girls got up sheepishly. "So," asked Rikki, "who are you again?"

"I'm Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, and you are? I mean besides in over your heads."

All three were astounded. "YOU'RE BUFFY?"

"We've heard of you, I thought you'd be bigger," said Rikki.

"Yeah," said Davina, "taller, like."

"And a hard-bitten hard-assed mother-fucker," said Evelyn, looking a little shocked at the language that came out of her own mouth. "I mean seriously, _you're_ the senior Slayer? You're the one who's saved the world more than any slayer in history? You're so short!"

"Yeah, I wouldn't talk if I were you, you guys are even shorter."

"But we're still growing!"

"Uh uh. At the rate you're going, I wouldn't think you'd get much bigger before biting the big one." Buffy let them stew on that thought for a few moments. The she said, "Introduce yourselves."

"I'm Rikki."

"I'm Davina."

"And I'm Evelyn."

All three looked down at the ground and scuffed their shoes in the dirt.

Rikki looked up, hero worship practically radiating from her eyes, "I'm ever so glad you were here, the help was much appreciated."

"Hmm, and just what did you think you were doing hunting vampires on your own? And on a school night, too."

Davina said, "Um, we were running laps and got bored."

Buffy laughed, "Running laps? Why?"

Evelyn said, "Cuz Xander got mad at Rikki and Davina fighting in the library and he told us to run the fence line ten times."

"Yeah," agreed Rikki, "and then Vina and Evie dragged me away."

Davina and Eve looked at Rikki, "What? You came away readily enough."

Buffy nodded her head, "Okay, I get the picture. Let's head back to the house."

"You're not gonna tell Xander on us, are you?" Rikki almost wailed.

"And just what do you think I should do?"

"Tell him you came across us running laps!"

"Yeah!"

"No, Xander would know instantly that I was lying."

"Ohhh!"

Xander was sitting on the front porch, drinking a beer when the four strolled up.

"Buffy! I didn't know you were in town!" said Xander, getting to his feet to give her a heartfelt hug.

"Yeah, I heard Faith needed a hand, so I'm here."

"I think she's innocent..."

"We're helping her either way it goes."

"Really?"

"Yeah, Faith's done all right the last few years. We'll never be best buds, but we get along these days. She's proved she can watch my back."

"Yeah, we've run across each other a few times since the fall of Sunnydale – she has changed."

"Anyway," said Buffy, "I found your wayward charges fighting vampires in the graveyard and getting their asses kicked."

Buffy turned to the three and said, "Get to bed girls, I'm getting you up at four-thirty in the morning and we're gonna do some training."

"But that's only three and a half hours from now!" said Davina.

"So? You need more sleep than that?"

"Well, no, but I wanted to finish this book..." Rikki and Evelyn grabbed Davina by the arms and dragged her up the stairs.

Xander shouted after them, "No dessert for a week, and you're gonna wash dishes for Jacques!"

A couple of _"That's no fair!"_s floated downstairs.

Buffy laughed. "Come on, fill me in on what's going on around here. Who's Jacques?"

"You're gonna love Jacques – he's a national treasure. It all started..."

* * *

TBC


End file.
